


Divine Ideas From a Demonic Mind: Worm Edition

by TheDivineDemon



Series: Divine Ideas From a Demonic Mind [1]
Category: Worm - Wildbow
Genre: Gen, One Shot, Plot Bunnies - Freeform, Snippets, random ideas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-01-16 11:34:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 30,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12341874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDivineDemon/pseuds/TheDivineDemon
Summary: A series of One-shots to get rid of the over flow of ideas in my oxymoronic head. Hope you enjoy the chaos. *Mostly Taylor Centered* If you feel like doing any of these feel free, just tell and credit me. I want to see these grow.





	1. Chapter 1

I've decided to Branch out to Ao3. I Hope I'm well received.

This is the first in a series of possible stories or ideas for stories that wouldn't leave my head. So I decided to write them down and see how they feel.

 

Rain in Brockton Bay 1.1

-0-0-0-0-0-

Hospitals were rarely happy places in my opinion.

It was where the sick come when things get too bad, where the dying come to hold off the reaper for just a little bit longer, where the injured find just how bad things were.

I fell into the last group.

Apparently, people thought it was funny to shove a fifteen-year-old girl into a locker filled with old and rotting tampons and just leave me there. No one answered my yells of pain or my cries for help. They just left me there, for three periods. With a pencil jammed in my leg.

I had been carrying one in my pocket when they shoved me into the locker, apparently being pushed over while you're heaving out your breakfast makes for just the right angle to have whatever's in your pocket puncture your leg.

An infection had set in, reaching into three of my thigh's muscles so bad that they needed to cut into my leg. My mind all but halted at that, the idea that I was hurt so bad that someone needed to cut into my leg terrified me.

I liked my leg; I didn't want to lose it.

How could Emma do this to me?

I didn't know what I did to make her hate me so much but I was sure that it couldn't have been enough to have that done to her.

"Taylor? Taylor." A voice said, trying to gently call out for my attention. Looking up from where I was staring pretty intently at my folded hands and hospital blanket I saw my dad all but hovering over me. "Did you understand what the doctor said?"

"He's going to cut into my leg," I said, my voice feeling dull and flat with the words.

"Only a little." The doctor said I couldn't even remember his name and he was going to take my leg from me. "The infection hasn't spread very far. You should be able to retain a good deal of mobility in your leg, with some physical therapy you'll be as good as new."

He gave me a smile, and I knew he was lying.

Trying to butter me up to feel better, to make me think that I could have a normal life.

I was probably never going to walk again because of them. Because Emma hated me, because Madison was petty, because Sophia was cruel, because no one cared what happened to some random girl.

"Taylor? Are you okay?" Dad asked for what felt like the hundredth time since he had entered the room. Of course, I wasn't alright! Why did he keep asking such an obvious and stupid question? "You keep on zoning out on us."

I didn't answer him with anything more than a shrug, the doctor said that I was probably just feeling a little delirious from the fever I was running. I wasn't, not really, I was angry. And disappointed.

And sad.

I was going to lose my leg.

If someone just opened that locker door sooner, answered me when I called for help just a little bit sooner, then maybe I could still have had a chance to live normally.

"Taylor?" Again Dad called out, pulling me away from my thoughts. "The nurse is going to need to see your arm."

Huh?

Did the doctor leave?

When did that happen?

The nurse rubbed something on my arm, "Okay honey this might hurt a tinsy bit." A sharp pain was followed by the uncomfortable heavy feeling of the needle setting under my skin. Cool liquid started to pour into me, it felt weird.

The nurse said something to my dad, something about how the drugs would put me out soon. That was true, the world started to swirl around, making me feel tired and a bit loopy.

As the drugs started to set in and my mind started to slip from me I looked out the window. I looked out the window and watched as the people walked around mindlessly along the sidewalks and streets.

Could I ever be like them again?

Just walk around for no other reason than to walk about? Be like that jogger and go for a run? Go to a nearby sandwich shop because it was there?

As my eyes started to close and I started to lose consciousness I could have sworn I saw flashes of blue fire swirling on nearby rooftops.

-0-0-0-

Derrick Lantern was just on his was on his way back to work, looking forward to a nice cold glass of whiskey and his recliner after a long day's work, when he was forced to slam the breaks on his car.

A red haired girl had wandered into the rode with no mind to the traffic, looking around as if a daze or confused.

He honked his horn a few times to try and gain her attention.

When she finally turned to look at her Derrick flinched back at the unnaturalness of her eyes.

Bright blue pupils stared at him from pools of black sclera that were too large for her face.

A cape.

There was no other way to explain those unblinking eyes.

Derrick felt fear, mind numbing body freezing fear.

He had the equivalent of a loaded gun pointed at him so he felt that he was allowed a little bit of fear. He could die because he gained her attention, because he irritated her.

He prepared himself for the worse, he prepared himself to run.

But she did nothing other than regard him for a moment, tilting her head to the side like a bird, before dismissing him entirely. Instead, she turned her attention up to the sky.

Then the first drops of rain started to fall.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The rain had been pouring down for a good few hours, sending people bustling to their destination and shelters. Smart people would have been doing the same, normal would have been doing the same, but determined people would not.

The two men standing alert in the alleyway as rain soaked through their clothes had too much at stake, too much invested in their plans, to let a little rain get in their way

Not that it would stop them from complaining.

"Fricking rain." One complained, tugging at his hood to cover his face a bit more.

His companion just rolled his eyes and took another drag of his slightly soggy cigarette, "Just be glad it's not snow."

The first man gave a snort, "I wish it was snow! At least then I'd just be cold, not cold and soaked to the bone."

"You're the one who planned this shit out and didn't want to call it quits when it started pouring." He was tempted to pull his cigarette from the protection of his hat to point at his companion but didn't like the risk to his nicotine. "So I say you suck it up and do what we came here to do."

"Yeah, whatever. Fucker should be here soon enough anyway."

Their target did appear, some eight minutes later. Jogging out of a laundry mat with a freshly pressed suit and a smile on his face, a smile that irked the two waiting men enough to be a bit more bold in their coming plans.

Reaching out as he came to the mouth of the alley they reached out and pulled the man in, slamming him hard enough against the wall that he dropped his suit. The man tried to fight them off, to get away, but his attackers were bigger and stronger than him. And they were plenty willing to show him the consequences of such attempts.

"Hey there monkey." The hooded man said as he added more pressure on the now bleeding man's neck, leaning a bit closer as he did so. "Remember me?"

Their target's eyes moved frantically around, taking in the scene around him. Noting very pointedly the cap wearing man's shaved head and the E88 tattoos on both men, on the neck of the cap and the peeking out the edges of the hooded one's sleeves.

"I don't think you're the type of people I would usually deal with." He said a bit nervously, trying to stay calm and get his wits about him.

Unfortunately, all his words really accomplish were to rally up his attacker, "Are you trying to get smart with me you stupid nigger?" The man growled out, putting even more pressure on the man's throat than before. "Well, are you!?"

"N-no." The victim coughed out.

"Good boy." The hooded man said as he reached into his jean pocket to pull out a switchblade, "Now I want you to think back to last week when you stole my job with that affirmative action bullshit."

For the first time since entering that alleyway, the man felt his fear pushed away by something else, something that more often than not would make the threats of violence seem negligible.

Pride.

"I earned that job."

Pain blossomed in his cheek as his head was forced to look to the right.

"No, you didn't! There is no way a dirty little ink spot like you could get a job over me without cheating! That's all you good for nothing monkeys are good at! Cheating and complaining till you get what you want!" With his fist still balled tightly around the knife he brought the blade up to his victim's eye level, "And I'm going to take it back, its only right."

"Would you just stab him already? You're attracting enough attention as it is." The ball cap wearer said as he sent another glare to the entrance of the alley at curious passerbys, making the cowards scatter without looking back. They knew who's turf they were close to, and they knew when to behave when apes were being shown their place.

Didn't mean he wanted to deal with the crap of when someone grew a spine and used their phones to call the cops.

"Fine, fine." He said, waving off his companions concerns before turning back to the squirming man. Feeling a bit dramatic he asked, "Any last words?"

Taking a deep and harried breath to reaffirm himself he decided to live his last few moments in life with pride. "I am not afraid to die. I know that Scion will guide me and Jesus will greet me. Can you two say the same?

And that struck an irksome cord in both men, "Why you religious piece of shi,"

"What are you doing?" A deep voice asked, echoing just a bit from its timber in the alleyway.

"What the hell?" The capped man asked, examining the speaker who seemed to drop from nowhere. The first thing he noted was female, barely noticeable and surprising from how deep the voice was. The next thing he noted was Cape.

Obviously so from her clothing.

Tight fitting black clothes with red swirls running over the material.

That was enough to make him start to back away but his feet seemed to freeze as he looked past the curtain of soaking wet scarlet hair and saw her eyes. Staring at him unblinking from her blue on black gaze.

She was a fucking Monster Cape.

That was bad. Very, very bad.

Monster Capes were supposed to be like normal capes on roids. Add to the fact that they were all supposedly crazy… Yeah, screw race comradery, he was not dealing with that level of bullshit.

"She, I, can feel you." She tilted her head to the side, wet hair drifting in clumps with the action. "You're doing something bad."

His eyes scanned the alley, only one entrance. That's why they picked it, so their prey wouldn't run; now it was a cage for them.

"Johnson, what are you doing? Get rid of the bitch." He heard his company all but yell in the corner of his hearing.

Was he really that stupid?

Did he not see how royally fucked they were?

He turned to yell at the moron only to see him already unconscious in the red head's grip. How did she do that he could have sworn she was still at the alley's entrance?

Doing a double take back he saw that, yes, she was still at the entrance staring at him blankly with her inhuman eyes.

How could she do that?

Be in two places at once?

A cloner? A teleporter?

A fist slammed into his stomach, forcing his cheap lunch to rise and leave his throat, before he could finish his thought. He crumpled to the ground with no air left in his lungs and the familiar feeling of a bruised rib.

"Are you okay?" Why would that dumb bitch be asking if he was okay after punching him in the gut like that?

"I-I'm fine, mostly. Ruffled, a little, but fine. Thanks you two." Oh, she was asking that stupid ape. Figures.

"Other bad things are happening, I'm going." That sentence sounded off. Like it half came from one place and the next part came from another.

Things went quiet for a while, making him guess that the two wannabe heroes decided to leave. But then there was the sound of rushing footsteps and the cry of "Racist fuck!".

Just like a monkey to kick a man when he was down. At least he was human enough to stop when he broke the nose.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-

The world was a haze to me.

Cloudy visions and dizzying thoughts were all that were known to me, well, those and a few faint murmuring voices. I think one of them was my dad, I didn't know.

I couldn't make out any words, but the voices were a strange comfort nonetheless. Everything felt light and airy, drifting aimlessly between different thoughts and impressions, and the voices helped ground me.

I blinked my hazy eyes for what felt like seven times, different scenery flickers into my sight as I do so.

Was that weird dream still going on?

I hate being half awake and the dream keeps going. It makes me want to go back to sleep all the more.

At least it was a good dream though.

I was a hero, a lot of heroes.

I helped people, helped them be less like me.

It had felt good.

I hoped I could have more dreams like that.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-

AN:

An AU where Taylor gets sure powers similar to Pein from Naruto. No Chakra just the paths


	2. Day & Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summation, Coil got together three parahuman's to create a separate villain organization from him under the power of threat so he can control them from the shadows. This is unlikely to work out well for him.

A none Taylor centered Worm Idea.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-  
Day and Night  
-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Lisa Wildbourn walked up to the old two story apartment building and did her best not to pull at the collar of her turtleneck. Summer was entirely the wrong time to wearing the type of shirt but she really didn't feel like risk anyone asking why she was wearing such a bulky collar around her neck, lest her new 'boss' decided she was too much of a risk.

It had been nearly a week since the small explosive was put around her neck and the weight hadn't become any more comfortable. She supposed there would be a day where she could ignore the weight of the impending doom around her neck but she didn't believe that day was anytime soon.

At least the sweater was sleeveless.

Walking up the steps and testing the door handle, unlocked, she made her way inside. Her mind recalling the apartment number where she was to meet her 'colleagues' that her new blackmailing bastard of a boss told her to work with. With her current luck, she was likely to end up with two mercenaries ordered to put a bullet in her head if she so much as twitched wrong.

But as she entered apartment 1C and made her way to the kitchen she found out that she was wrong.

As she was informed there were two people waiting for her but neither stood with any professional ease. Instead, they both looked agitated and uncomfortable; the later seemed to be caused by the company they were sharing.

As she studied the pair her power started to unwind itself and offer her a flood of information.

The woman in the room was mousy, in her mid to late twenties, brown hair, and eyes, and used to be a lot more physically active. She stopped due to pregnancy, which had successfully met full term with no complications. The slight tan line around left ring finger indicating a nearly as recent divorce. The way her eyes shifted more than occasionally to the other occupant in the room, along with a posture was screaming suspicion and discomfort, indicated a prejudiced mindset.

Her other future co-worker was closer to her age, maybe two to three years older. He was dark skinned, tall and had his hair braided into cornrows. His physique, even as hidden by his long sleeve shirt and sweat pants, indicated a more than healthy lifestyle. The way he pointedly looked ahead at the wall with his arms crossed and a severe frown on his faced made it clear that he knew of his companion's beliefs.

How he got that bit of information became obvious as her power started to fill in more and more information for her. It whispered to her that they hadn't been in the room much longer than her but it was long enough for accusations to fly... The woman accused the boy, man, of helping their mutual employer to blackmail her. Something he denied and things seemed to have gotten heated from there until something was said to abruptly end the conversation.

She shut down her power before she could get much more but she understood the gist of things.

Well, she could only guess how much fun it was going to be working with these two.

Letting out a sigh she fully entered the kitchen and asked out loud, "So what does he got on you two?"

Neither jumped or reacted much to her voice. The woman simply stood straighter and the man turned to face her, both actions probably quicker than either would like.

"What?" The man asked, his voice deep and harsh. Irritated and angry over the situation, looking for something to blame. Something to attack.

The woman wasn't better, in fact, she was worse.

Whatever their new employer had over these two must have been substantial.

"Well," She started, pulling down the collar of her turtleneck to show her collar. "Since I don't see either of you with this lovely neck piece I'm guessing he has something else on you two."

Both were quiet for a moment, faces turning as they thought about the leverage that was being used against them. And while the man began to answer Lisa could see the woman literally starting to glow with rage, forcing her to realize that she's now working with a known neo-nazi. That was not going to make her job or life any easier.

"He has my sister and her daughter." Again the man's voice was gruff, "Showed us pictures with them wearing collars like yours."

"Oh." There wasn't much she could say to that. It was a good way to keep people under control that's for sure, but it was going to make it much easier than she thought to gain allies against him.

The awkward silence only lasted as long as Lisa could stand it. They needed to start planning.

"So, how to start a criminal enterprise?"

 

-0-0-0-0-0-

 

Brian hated a great many things about his new job.

The greatest and most obvious of which was the fact his payment for a good day's work was a skype with his sister to show that, no, his new boss hadn't blown up her head yet. That she was still breathing, trapped in a room that looked like someone mixed a jail cell with a hotel room.

Talking to her and seeing how terrified she was, to see how much she blamed her, despite all her bravado was the worst moment of his life. It made him feel so helpless, so worthless. The mere thought of it makes him tighten his grip on the steering wheel so hard that his knuckled popped.

But, as said before, that was just one of many things he did not like about his new job.

The second thing he hated the most about his new job was sitting next to him, looking bored and angry at the world as she stared quietly out the window. Her mousy brown hair was mostly hidden, along with her eyes, by a silver colored visor that looked almost like it could be helmet if it only covered more than the top of her head to just above her ears.

The thing was uncomfortable, as he could attest with his near-identical copy, and if didn't know better he would have thought he could simply tap the helmet off.

But it wasn't the helmet that was bothering him, no. It was the woman wearing it.

A known Neo-Nazi, a suspected killer, a woman who was known to tear down buildings to get her way. And he had to work with her. Neither of them was particularly happy with the arrangement but their new boss had them both firmly in his grasp. Brian by his sister and Purity, Kayden, by her daughter.

They were both stuck with each other until they could find a way to save their loved ones.

It didn't mean he had to like it.

Pulling up to the curb of the street and placing the sedan in park Brian spoke for the first time since getting in the car, "We're here."

Kayden didn't acknowledge him at first, instead, she pressed her lips into a thin line as she looked out the window. A few seconds later she would let out a deep sigh and nod. "Okay. Let's get this over with."

The resigned and frustrated sound in her voice was definitely a sentiment he could relate to. So, with a nearly in sync motion, the two parahumans stood out of the car and made their way to their target. Said target was an ordinary looking row house, simply one among many, but what was inside was what separates it from its neighbors.

As they walked along the way to the house the two parahumans in matching suit became harder and harder to make out.

The tall male slowly becoming engulfed in a cloud of darkness, his facial features turning into nothing more than blurs of shadow.

The woman, on the other hand, had progressively gotten harder to look at. It started from her hair before moving onto her skin but with every step, she became brighter and brighter, until one had to squint just to make out the feminine qualities of her face.

The only thing recognizable about the two of them as they walked side by side, as shadow and star, were their suits and visors. Somehow the view of both was barely obstructed by their owner's powers, silver visors and pristine suit & ties seen through all the darkness and light.

It was an off-putting and obvious thing that had cleared the remainder of the street of pedestrians as the two parahumans calmly made their way up the stairs of the house's deck and calmly rang the doorbell.

"Remember to stay in character, they're recording this." Brian reminded her, his voice giving a distant echo under the effects of his power, as they both waited for the door to open with the image of patience.

"I know." She said in what sounded like gritted teeth as he reminded her of the what Brian considered to be the third worst thing about the job.

The new cape identities.

He understood the need to rebrand them to show they were under new management, he even understood how gimmicks made it so they would stick out in the city's minds. But he did not like how Lisa, and by extension their new boss, had them putting on a play every time they went out in costume.

He disliked it so much that he almost missed his cue as the door opened to reveal a nervous man in his in a deep breath Brian gave a slight bow, his hand held flat and open as he pointed to Kayden.

"Good evening sir. This is Ms. Day."

And on her cue Kayden gave her own slight bow and mirrored his hand move, "And he is Mr. Night."

"And we are here to talk to you about a business arrangement between our two parties."

"We'd very much appreciate it if you were to fetch your employer for the conversation."

The man's mouth opened and worked itself for a moment as he tried to comprehend what was happening in front of him. Eventually, he managed to say, "I'll go get the boss. See if he wants to talk ta you."

As the door closed Brian saw Kayden's shoulders slump slightly in the corner of his eye and heard her mumble, "I hate being their trained monkey."

'At least she was speaking sense' Brian thought as he mumbled out a response, "Agreed."

They waited on the houses patio and a tense silence, wondering if they were going to have to fight or if the police had been called before the door opened again. "The boss said to come in."

AN:  
I was a bit inspired by that good old trope of "Those Two Bad Guys" aka two dude who dress alike, call each other mr/ms and are generally chill with each other as they go about their... buissness.


	3. Player v Player

Non-Taylor Gamer/Worm story.

 

Player V Player 1.1

Game Start

-0-0-0-0-

_Theo_

 

Breakfast, as usual, was a quiet affair. Even though his cousins had come over for a visit they remained silent on their phones, tapping away at who knows what. His father, as was his habit, sipped on his morning coffee as he reviewed the various papers in front of him. Theo himself was picking at his food with a great interest. He didn't want to look up from his plate because if he did the unwanted evidence would be staring him in the face.

 

The evidence that he had either gone crazy or had finally come into his superpowers. He really hoped it was the former. Because if had gotten powers then he knew what would happen.

 

He knew what would be expected of him.

 

His eyes flickered to his father at that thought. He looked back down at his eggs a second later. The words were still there, floating above his father's head in bright green letters declaring his names and title for the world to see. For him to see.

 

**< The Emperor>**

**Max Anders/Kaiser (The E88)**

**LVL ??**

 

Theo knew enough about, played enough, video games to know that LVL meant level and that the question marks meant that his father was too strong for him. That was something he didn't need any power to tell him. Though he felt an unwanted ping of jealousy as he remembered his cousins’ own titles.

**< The Emperor's Guard>**

**Nessa Biermann/Menja (The E88)**

**LVL 43**

**< The Emperor's Guard>**

**Jessica Biermann/Fenja (The E88)**

**LVL 43**

 

It bothered him, more than he would ever care to admit, was that his own title had nothing to do with his family's. What type of a title was ** <The Gamer>**? Was his power taking a dig at itself? At him?

 

What was a gamer to royalty?

 

“Theo, stop clinking your silverware on the plate. It's distracting” His father didn't even look up from his papers when he said this but his tone was clear.

 

Theo put his fork down.

 

“Good. Now, how has school been? Did you catch up with your friends after winter break?” He sounded like he was curious, he even sounded like he cared. He didn't. Even if he didn't know his father he knew it was a lie, he knew the signs. The man's posture all but screamed what he really thought and he didn't even bother hiding it.

 

A bright blue box suddenly appeared, both startling him and blocking his vision.

 

**Congratulations! You have created your first skill!**

**Cold Read (Passive/Active): Lvl 1 EXP: 19%**

**The human body can tell a story just as well as the mouth and it can tell no lies in front of your eyes**

  * **Ability to detect lies increase by 3% Passively, 6% Actively**
  * **Ability to detect mental state increased by 3% Passively, 6% Actively**
  * **Ability to ascertain and piece together information about a person increased by 3% Passively, 6% Actively**



'What in the world’ he had to wonder, blankly staring at the words in front of him. What was this thing before him and why was it worded so strangely?

 

“Theo.” His father was paying attention to him now, undivided as his eyes locked on him. That was never a good thing.

 

“Things have been fine.”  He said stiffly, sounding as polite as he could manage. He flinched again as another the sound binged once more and another screen appeared.

 

**Calm Surface: LVL 1 Exp: 22%**

**Like a river, your surface is calm and unbroken despite the rapids underneath. Hopefully, the trickle down effect will calm your insides as well.**

  * **Ability to stay calm under pressure increased by 5%**



He carried on as if the blue box never appeared, “Midterm grades should be back in by Friday.” His father hummed but that was all Theo could tell, the blue boxes were still in his way, still blocking his sight.  Though if he went a little cross-eyed he found he could see through them. See through them and see his father studying him.

 

His father hummed, clearly disappointed over something. “If I remember correctly post break is usually when clubs start looking for new members again. Did any of them catch your eye?”

 

A few, “No sir.” But none enough that he'd want to deal with the pressure that came with it. Not only would his father expect him to start taking over the group but he'd have to interact with other kids. He really wished he was better at that.

 

“I can't say I'm not disappointed.” Theo waited for the other foot to drop, “But I also can't let this go on any longer. You're wasting your time playing games all day when you could be spending it doing something productive.”

 

There was a pause, he was supposed to speak here. “Like what sir?” It was almost like reading a script.

 

“Like, for example, working at Medhall part-time. There are a number of internship positions available. It would give you an opportunity to see how the family business works from the inside.” Which family business? The largest medical company in the Northeast? Or the largest gang of white supremacists in the country?

 

Both were just as likely.

 

“I'll be sure to apply.”

 

“See that you do. This company will be yours someday.” He didn't miss the look his cousins shared. Yeah, he had his doubts about that too. “Now finish your food. The driver will be here for you soon.”

 

-0-0-0-0-

_Emma_

 

-Hey u hr yet-

 

The text was sent with a nervous and impatient energy, her eyes tracking towards the bathroom door hoping her friend would arrive soon. That morning had been a rollercoaster of emotions for her. Going from confused to excited to disappointed to excited all over again in the span of a few minutes. She NEEDED to share the news with someone, someone who would understand and be just as excited as her.

 

That person just needed to hurry up and get there.

 

She had all but started pacing when her phone gave off a distinctive ring. Eagerly she pressed in her password and read the message.

 

-Bus jst got hr. Where r u?-

 

-Second flr b rm-

 

-K BRT-

 

Sophia wasn’t the first to get there, instead, a girl named Amanda Granger did. She was a little slip of a thing that she barely recalled, a friend of a friend that she wouldn't even remember the name of if it weren't for recent events. Still, she had to go.

 

Emma blocked her path, “Occupied, find another bathroom.” The other girl opened her mouth as if she was really just about to argue with her. A raised eyebrow was enough to get her to shut up and take a step back.

 

Since Taylor's incident at the beginning of the semester, people have been more than a little antsy around her. It was irritating but it had its uses. Like when you wanted a bathroom to yourself.

 

“I'll just hold it.”

 

“You do that.”

 

As the girl turned to leave a bright blue screen popped up in front of Emma’s face.

 

**Intimidation (Active): LVL 1 EXP: 34%**

**Through body language, reputation and sly words you inspire fear. Use it to scare away lesser foes or to squeeze information from the weak.**

  * **Increase fear and unease in a Target by 2%**



'Tell me something I don't know power’ Emma thought a bit snidely, feeling insulted that her skill only earned a 2%. She still didn't understand what all the numbers meant but she had clue. The higher they were the better they were and she deserved more than a 2.

 

The door opened a second time and Emma had to smile as a dark skinned girl entered the room. Her eyes automatically tracking to the words that were floating above her head.

**< The Huntress>**

**Sophia Hess/Shadow Stalker (The Wards)**

**LVL 28**

 

Her friend had the highest number out of anyone she had seen so far! Her dad only had a 12 next to his name and the highest after that had been the gym teacher at 18. But Sophia had blown them both clear out of the water. And there Emma was with a lousy 3 next to her name.

 

It must have been because Sophia was a hero. She’d get there soon.

 

“Okay Ems, I’m here. What’s the big rush?” Emma’s grin just got all the larger at the question but she didn’t verbally answer. Instead, she grabbed the little swiss army knife from her pocket, freshly nicked from her family’s junk drawer, and stabbed herself in the hand.

 

**The level of your Physical Endurance has increased!**

 

Sophia’s reaction was almost hilarious.

 

“Emma! What the hell!” she screamed, grabbing at her hand in a sweet gesture to get the blade out of her. But she paused, leaning in to examine what she was seeing. “There’s no blood. There should be blood.”

 

Emma just kept smiling even as she pulled the blade out, showing her friend the blood free blade. “Not when you got powers.”

 

Sophia’s grip on her hand got even tighter, “Emma, what happened?”

 

“Nothing.”

 

“Emma, what, happened.” Sophia kept her gaze firmly on Emma’s eyes. Was that worry there. “You don’t just get powers over nothing. Something bad has to happen.”

 

“Sophia,” Emma snatched her hand away, “Nothing bad happened. I just woke up and, boom, powers.”

 

“... That makes no sense. Did you have a nightmare or something?”

 

Emma could only shrug, feeling disappointed her big reveal wasn’t getting the type of attention she wanted. “No clue. If I had one I don’t remember it.”

 

The other girl seemed to think this over, “Well, if Glory Girl can get powers from getting fouled I guess you can get one from a nightmare. So what can you do?”

 

Emma’s smile returned. That was the type of attention she wanted! “Well, I haven’t gotten it all figured out yet but…"

 

 

AN:

It’s a bit rough but a decent enough start. This idea started when I randomly thought something about Gamer fics and games in general, thinking how much more fun a game was when you played against/with someone else. Not that these two would realize it at first.

 

Both are going to have very different playthroughs of what is essentially the same game and when they meet it’s going to be interesting to see how they react.

 

Thoughts? Opinions? Suggestions?


	4. Rain In Brockton Bay pt2

Rain in Brockton Bay 1.2  
-0-0-0-0-0-

The girl snuggled into the noticeably older man's arm just a bit more, much to the man's amusement as he adjusted their shared umbrella a bit more so the rain clipped him more than her. The proper and gentlemanly thing to do.

An action that earned him a bit of a smile.

Good, he was trying for that. To make things work.

He knew she had insecurities about them, despite her feeling and his own growing. So he put effort into reinforcing what they had. Spending more time together, teaching her how to dance when she asked, and taking her out to dinner at least once a month.

The dinner was usually accompanied by a walk in one of the local parks. Something he was going to cancel that night because of the sudden downpour.

But then he saw Odette's face when he said as much.

That almost crushing disappointed look on her face made him actually pull his car into a nearby Haji-Mart and buy one of their cheap umbrellas. When he came back with said piece of cheap plastic the look on Odette's face was worth walking into that disgusting place.

He found it a bit funny how so many of his actions were dictated by how she reacted to the world around her and the faces she would make. Did that mean he was truly falling in love with her? Even if it felt different than what he had with Kathrin?

He hoped so, he really did.

Taking his eyes off her for the first time in what must have been in several minutes he turned his gaze forward and paused.

"Victor?" Odette asked as she slowed her pace with his, squinting her eyes a bit against the rain as she tried to see what he did.

A girl was walking towards them, bright red hair contrasting greatly with the dreary background of the rain stained park. Something that didn't seem that out of the ordinary, besides the fact she was out in the rain without a care.

Odette couldn't see it but Victor could.

He saw that she was approaching them with a purpose. The girl's face was directed right at them and her gait shifting to align with her targets' path. That girl wanted something from them and she was unlikely to stop until she got it.

He also noticed that her gait was… off.

As smooth as the oncoming girl moved, her steps were clumsy, like she wasn't used to her body. Similar to a teen who just had a growth spurt.

Not something too odd, given the youthful age apparent on her face but, in a world where body jumpers and Master's existed, he didn't want to take a chance.

"Odette, get behind me." He said gently as not to startle her or their apparent pursuer, handing her the umbrella even as he guided her behind him. His hand tracing one of the knives he had hidden seamlessly on him.

The girl did so, her hand gliding over his with the action.

He smiled as he felt a familiar rush of energy spread through him, 'Smart girl' He thought as shifted his stance a bit. Casual but ready.

He just had to keep their pace steady enough to get them and their pursuer into a less occupied area. Even if there were only maybe three other people forcing themselves out that day to go to the park he did not want to risk a breach in identity by a lucky passerby.

Not that the red head was seemed to be giving them much of a choice.

She was going to cut them off and force a confrontation no matter what he did. Better to make the first strike himself instead of letting her have full control of the situation.

"What do you want?" He asked once she was at the border of his comfort zone.

The girl stopped at the question tilting her head just enough for her hair to shift out of the way to see her eyes. Eyes that made him curse at the sight of.

"Why do you feel different than the others?" The girl asked in way of an answer, her voice too deep for her apparent age and.

"What?" He asked, tracing the knife again.

"You feel different from the others in the city. There but not, greater and bigger than other but the same size. People like you two dot the city, different from the others, why?" Victor raised a brow at her strange way of talking, but the implications of what she was saying started to sink in.

She approached him because he and Odette because they felt different, because they weren't like other people. He could only think of one reason for that.

Fucking Monster Capes and not following the damn rules, even Alabaster was better than that. Then again, she might not have known the rules and there was no reason to upset the very dangerous Cape in front of him.

He needed to take the diplomatic route and hope for the best.

Even with Odette's boost, he didn't want to risk a fight with a cape who most likely had multiple and powerful abilities, especially with Odette so close by.

"We're Capes." He said, he felt Odette shift behind him to probably stare at him in shock. "And we were just on a walk. What you're doing is against the rules."

"Rules?" The deep voice asked, head still tilted and eyes still yet to blink.

Victor was about to answer when a sound came off in the distance, a shrieking roar that could be heard echoing from blocks away.

Was Lung on another rampage?

No, he had heard Lung bellow with rage before and that wasn't him. Even at his most dragon like Lung still sounded human, distorted as it may be he still sounded human. Whatever that sound was it wasn't right, it was too inhuman.

It chilled him a little, Odette more so as she gripped onto the hem of his jacket.

But the girl in front of him didn't even seem to notice it and simply asked her question again. "Rules?"

Fucking monster capes.

"You don't mess with Capes out of costume." He said shortly, nerves calm but frazzling with the situation. "People who do get both sides after them, villains and PRT."

The girl didn't say anything to his answer, her head just straightened out of its tilt and her unblinking blue on black eyes seemed to focus past him for a second. When her disturbing eyes focused back on him she only said, "Thank you", and left.

Running away at speeds he was sure would have gotten most cars pulled over for.

In the distance, he could see an impossibly big bird rise over the rooftops and glide away into the rain filled sky.

'What the hell is happening tonight' He thought as he slowly relaxed out of his stance. His hand reaching behind him in search of Odette's, whose hand insanity if not a bit shakily took his.

"I think we need to talk to Kaiser."

-0-0-0-0-0-

The drugs had worn off, mostly, and I was still seeing things.

Different scenes and events happening throughout the rainy city, and being the cause of the rain made it feel all the stranger. I could see the city; feel the city, with my rain pouring down.

The shapes of the buildings came in clear to my mind, the curves of the streets and how so many things moved throughout it all gave me an amazing view of the city.

It was like… like I was seeing a giant model of the city while remembering it at the same time. It was awesome and weird.

Awesome because it meant I had superpowers.

Weird because I was seeing/feeling something so big, so new, and it felt… right. Like I was just using my hand or eyes to look over something.

Speaking of eyes, I was still a little freaked out I had seven pairs of them. Six of them attached to bodies all around the city.

Bodies that looked like me but with strange eyes and red hair. It was a bit disconcerting at first but as I got used to it things got fun, and interesting.

Each one of the bodies did something different, like how one could summon the rain I was using to survey the city and another could summon up monsters.

I was just getting used to them and didn't know all of what they could do but experimenting with them would make the next four days in the hospital pass by a bit better.

A lot better actually.

The body, I really need to think of a better term for that, that made the rain is one I had made the most headway with and from what I can tell the one that was going to get me in the most trouble.

It already had, I realized, as the animal summoning body got in a fight with a fireball throwing girl when I asked why she felt different.

Maybe asking that question so bluntly to the first six, seven if I count the couple, was a bad idea but at least I got my answer.

And a death threat.

And a strongly worded offer from the Protectorate.

It was a lot to take in and, even when I was blocks away, scary. So after getting my answer, I ran. At least the couple was nice about it.

Still, I was glad I asked.

They all just felt so weird compared to the other people in the rain. With everyone else, I could make out their shape, get a read on their mood, and even tell if someone was injured but the people who were apparently capes were different.

It was like… like something was attached to them, something that wasn't in synch with the rest of the world.

I guess that would be their powers then.

Still, I had to be careful.

I really did not want to turn up on the PRTs most wanted list.

I was so wrapped up in my thought I didn't hear my dad calling my name. He had to shake my shoulder a bit to get my attention. "Taylor, someone is here to talk to you."

Blinking slightly to get out of my thoughts and process what my dad said I turned my head to see who it was. In the doorway a fit-looking man with hair freshly cut and a suit that had obviously seen better day. He gave me a smile as he walked into the room.

I didn't recognize him.

"Hey there Taylor, my name's Detective Richards. Call me Alex though." He gave me another smile that I could only blink at; he seemed to falter a bit at that. He turned towards my dad, "Painkillers?"

In the corner of my eye I could see my dad nod, arms crossed and body tense.

Was he angry?

"Dang, I'm going to have to come back for another interview later." He said, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a tape recorder and notebook with a pencil folded into its pages. "For right now, I'm going to ask you a few questions if that's alright with you and your dad."

I looked over at my dad, he was still tense even as he seemed to unfold himself to look at me and ask if I was up for it.

"I think?" A question more than an answer, the day's earlier events and drugs must have been affecting me more than I thought.

"Okay," The Detective started, "Let's start things simple. What do you remember? Start when you got to school if you can."

"I," My voice stalled as I shuffled through my cloudy memory. "The school smelt bad. Like something died."

"That's good. Anything else?" His voice annoyingly eager as he pushed me for more information. I didn't know anymore, there wasn't anymore. I went to school, went to my locker, ended up in the hospital.

I wanted to scream that at him, but instead, I said, "Not really, not till the Locker." I tried to keep the emotion out of my voice with that but I knew I failed. I turned part of my focus out towards my bodies out in the city, using them as a distraction to calm myself.

The Detective made a sound I couldn't identify as he jotted something down in his notebook, "That's okay, not expecting you to remember everything while your looped up." He gave me another smile, why did he keep smiling? "Now is there anyone I should be looking at? Enemies? Bullies or gang members you may have slighted?"

I didn't say anything for. This was the moment that I've been waiting for: for such a long time, for someone to listen to me and do something about my bullies.

But would he really listen?

Would he really do anything at all?

When I went to teachers in the past they never acted. They said some fancy words, promised things that would never happen, or they would tell me to stand up for myself if I really wanted the bullies to stop.

Could I really expect this man to be any different?

"Taylor." My dad spoke up, leaning forward a bit to talk. "Taylor? Do you know who did this to you?"

"I," Could I really tell my dad it was Emma? Did I really want to believe or think that Emma would actually go that far?

That the girl that used to be my best friend had almost taken my leg away from me?

"Taylor. Look at me." A different voice said, the Detective's, but it sounded different. It was less friendly and had none of the forced approachable tone I heard so many adults use. Instead, it was harder, sterner, almost angry.

I looked up at him to realize all those things I had just used to describe his voice were echoed and featured on his face.

"What happened to you, what put you there in that bed, was an obvious and pre-meditated case of a disgusting form assault. Whoever did this to you deserves to be punished. They deserve to be punished for this. To be put into a cramped little cell for as long as the law allows. And I plan on making that happen, but I'm going to need your help to do it."

I was frankly astonished that anyone could speak about helping me with such fervor. I didn't really believe it.

And I really doubted they were going to get Emma thrown into jail, not with her lawyer dad working for the superhero run law firm.

I felt my dad squeeze my hand. Looking up I saw him looking right back at me with a strained expression on his face. "Taylor, please. Let us help you."

Those words stung me.

Here my dad was, willing and wanting to help me but I was hindering that effort. That effort I had been waiting for and I was stopping it.

But I didn't know what to do. I didn't know if I wanted dad to know what's been going on, how Emma's been hurting me. How she's been twisting and tarnishing mom's memory to mess with my head. How I was too weak to stand up for myself throughout it all.

He squeezed my hand, sent me another imploring look, and whatever resolve to keep it from him I had left collapsed. I mumbled three names, "Madison Clements, Sophia Hess… and Emma Barnes. They've been bullying me since high school started."

As I told them about the bullying I couldn't help but think that things might be getting better.


	5. Militia

Militia Pt1 - Worm (A Mentor Fic)

 

Hannah Washington was of a rare breed. Truly a one in a million specimen that needed to be looked on with awe and just a bit of suspicion. The reason for this was simple, Hannah Washington liked her job.

One could even go so far as to say that she loved her job, if not that then she certainly believed in what her job did and stood for. It was hard not to when she had worked for the same organization since she was a little girl.

So, unlike a number of her colleagues and co-workers, she would have a genuine smile on her face as walked through one of her “Open presence” patrols. Pausing here and there to make small talk with delighted fans, stopping for minor acts of heroism every once in a while (Usually in the form of scaring away would be dealers and thugs), and just simply showing the community that, yes, the authorities did care.

Something that was disappointingly hard to prove in a city like Brockton Bay, still she had to try. She had to believe.

“Ah! Miss Militia!” An excited little voice called from across the street, drawing her attention to a little girl who tugged insistently on a rather frazzled looking woman’s hand. Hannah smiled in a way that made it obvious through her American Flag scarf, the way that made her eyes crinkle in the corners, and waved a gloved hand.

Her uniform, or costume as many insisted on calling it, was simple enough but strikingly recognizable from a distance. It was designed to be so by the Protectorate and Parahuman Response Teams PR machine, turning out a professional but eye catching inspiring design.

It was a look that had changed very little since she had first started her career as a hero. The facsimile of army fatigues she wore cut in such a way to draw subtle attention to her athletic frame and its color slightly off to a green that complimented her middle eastern complexion. But what really drew the people’s attention, what truly made her recognizable as a public figure, was the stylized scarf she wore around her neck and the sash she wore around her waist made to look like the American flag.

It’s what identified her to millions as the hero Miss Militia. It made her nearly as much of a hero as the swirling green and black energy at her hip, forming into the less threatening form of a billy club.

She, again, made for a striking figure. It was why so many of the undesirable elements of the area had quickly made themselves scarce when she arrived, conveniently better places they could be. She smiled at that, and smiled again as she posed for a photograph with a tourist.

All and all she thought her patrol was going pretty well, and then she stumbled. And then she fell.

A familiar vision came swirling to life before her eyes. The great figures blossomed into view, crystal giants made of smaller giants, circling each other as they encompassed an infinite expansion planets. An infinite expansion of reflected and mirrored Earth, the view narrowing again and again as the Giants ripped piece after piece of themselves off. Letting the smaller giants fall like a meteor shower.

The viewed zooming in again and again as one piece became larger and larger, steering itself towards her Earth. Towards her.

It raced forward with blaring words, feeling and information too great and dizzying for her mind to comprehend more than the most basics of basics.

[Exchange?]  
[Offer: Bud Prepared]  
[Assimilating]

 

Hannah came back to reality with a shuddering gasp and a few worried good Samaritans hovering above her, one already on his phone as he talked to the 911 operator. “-pretty sure it’s her. She has that glowing gun thing of hers. Look just send somebody alright, she, oh! She’s coming to. What should I do?”

The man paused for a moment, nervously listening to the other end for instructions, “I, uh, *ahem* Miss Militia, Ma’am, the operator says that you shouldn’t move until the ambulance arrives, which is about five minutes from now. So, stay still, please, ma’am.”

Hannah nodded absently, mentally pegging the man to be in his very early twenties, knowing that the paramedics weren’t even needed. She knew what had happened, she knew what had caused her fainting spell.

There was only one thing the world that could have caused her to see those creatures, those gods, again.

Tapping at her earpiece she relayed a quick message, “Miss Militia, Reporting from Redd AVe Ext, calling in a Blue 26.” Blue 26, the code phrase for a Protectorate member affected by a Trigger Event, by a new Parahuman being born.

A burst of static in her ear drew her from her thoughts, “Copy, a Response Team is being dispatched now, ETA 10 minutes.”

Ten minutes was much too long of a time, especially if the new Parahuman turned violent. Even more so when one considered what was just around the street bend. When one considered the shopping center packed with the unaware.

All those people crammed into one large building with an emotional Parahuman who didn’t know their own strength.

Hannah quickly stood back to her feet, feet unsteady from brief vertigo, and rushed forward, ignoring the various protest for her to stay. Her boots stomped against the ground with rapid slaps, carrying her quickly to her thankfully noisy but peaceful destination.

The paramedics and Response teams found her sometime later, pacing as she made a fruitless circuit of the building.

-0-0-0-0-0-

 

Two weeks had gone by and there had been no further sign of the new Parahuman. No violent acts suddenly lashed out, no police reports of some great personal crime being committed, and no hospital reports altering them of a new traumatic injury.

They had no clues and Hannah was frustratingly confined to base or her home as a form of “Light duty”. Supposedly it was to ensure that there were no lasting effects of her Trigger Event exposure. Though, she was sure, her continued observation was to no disappointment of the various scientist of the base.

It wasn’t very often that they had access to someone who experienced another’s Tigger, even rarer still to have someone willing to talk about it with them. Though there were still parts of it she had not shared, parts that felt too personal.

Who would believe her visions anyway?

To occupy her time during her newly acquired free time Hannah volunteered to take monitor duty and read over case reports, anything to feel more useful than a lab rat. Even if the task she had chosen were mind numbingly dull within themselves. This was likely why she so welcomed Velocity’s sudden interruption.

“Hannah!” Called out, all but slamming the door as he entered. He was out of uniform, wearing only a domino mask to hide his identity, and seemed to have something very urgent to tell her if the wide eyed look on his face was anything to go by. “Hannah!” He repeated as he zoomed inhumanly closer, abusing her ability out of urgency. “Have you been online today?

“No.” Truth be told she hadn’t been on for over a week, tired of all the speculation of her fainting spell.

“Something happened last night, down by the docks. You NEED to see this.”

Curious Hannah laid down the old report that regaled her of possible Empire safe houses and peers into Velocity’s hand, staring at the video already cued up. Velocity, Robin out of uniform, played the video as soon as he saw he had her attention and the view from a shaky camera began.

Whoever filmed the scene was doing so from a fairly old or fairly cheap smartphone from a second story window. The image, a tad blurry from a shaky hand, showed a group of three men being confronted by a lone girl. Hannah didn’t what was being said, the camera’s mic being too poor, and she didn’t know what started the confrontation, the video starting too late for that. But she knew one thing.

The girl was a Cape.

She hadn’t even used her Parahuman powers yet and it was still obvious for all to see. She was a bit over the average height with short dark curls peeking their way out from under her costume shop bought general’s cap. Her clothes oversized and ill fitted, as it was for most independent heroes just starting out, but clearly made to give the facsimile of a military uniform.

A fan of hers? Is that why Velocity was showing her the video? Because there was a new hero in town and they apparently looked up to her?

She found out the real reason a moment later.

One of the men advanced, shouting something as he reached beneath for something. The girl took a step back, frightened, but quickly regained her nerve as she stood tall and waved her hand. It was with that wave that she understood what was going on.

With a familiar swirl of black and green energy lines of a dozen little two inch tall men came into existence. Each dressed as if they had stepped out of Vietnam War documentary, right down to their M16 rifles.

The newly formed regiment of tiny soldiers marched forward with all the eerie timing and unity of a trained regiment. It was an intimidating sight with grown men but with the figurine like men, it was disturbing, spooky even given their silence.

The man did not seem cowed as he took another step forward, apparently unafraid given his bravado, and then a dozen rapid fire popping sounds snapped to life in the alleyway. The sound reminded Hannah vaguely of driving up to a driving range, the sound of dozens of guns muffled by distance.

A half second after the sound the advancing man fell to his back, holding a bloodied leg.

The would be cameraman muted the rest of the video as he fumbled with the phone, likely cursing and revealing something of himself, and leaving before the fight ended. There wasn’t a need, Hannah’s perfect memory easily recalled a police report that now seemed very incomplete.

The report detailed the arrest of three drug dealers, one with a substantially injured leg, What the report failed to mention was the noted parahuman’s costume, powers or even alias. Rookies… The Departments needed to stop sending them to pickups.

She numbly took the phone from Robin’s hands, replaying the scene twice more as her co-worker and friend spoke gently to her, “The video was only posted a few hours ago but it happened last night.” He paused, finding the word he wanted to say, “We’ll find her Hannah.”

They had to. They couldn’t just let her stay out there on her own!

Hannah felt the meaning of the video finally sink into her, how it percolated in her mind and stirred emotions in her chest.

She had a Second Gen.

She had a Kid Cape.

Cape and Parahuman culture may only be a little over twenty years young there were already many staples within it. The Unwritten Rules being the most famous of which but one that ran nearly as deep were the Second Gens. Capes whose power came from another Cape.

Maybe it was because most Second Gens came from families, partners or children, and other such close relationships but there was certain … bond expected between the two Parahuman Generations. Some would call it a mentorship, others would call it familiar bond.

It was a cultural thing, she knew. There was nothing biological about it, but it was expected. It was encouraged… It was desired.

Hannah, despite all her years as an active Cape and Parahuman, had never had a Second Gen before. She had seen others gain their own, seen them grow close, and felt a pang of jealousy every time.

And now that she had one, one so obviously hers, she wasn’t sure how to act.

 

AN:  
So I got pulled back into the Worm Fandom, yay.

This snip was inspired by three things. 1. An old idea of mine that there was a bit of Cape Culture around Second Gens, 2. The fic Nike 3. Honestly diverted from a brief Jojo cross thought where I’m near 100% sure Taylor would have a swarm stand, like Bad Company shown below. Note, inspired by but not actually a cross.

Hope you guys enjoyed! Let me know what you thought!


	6. Immersion Ch:1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A story I'm likely to finish

The warehouse district of Brockton Bay was a surprisingly lively place for a city whose shipping had dried up. Though, perhaps, that wasn't so shocking. The old concrete buildings were spacious and though a bit drafty protected many from the elements when they had nowhere else to call home.

it had practically become a small town unto itself. They were a headache that the police couldn’t be bothered with unless they got into buildings that businesses were actually using.

But vagrants and the homeless weren’t the only residents of the area. No, there were far more fantastical occupants who made their homes away from homes within the forgotten buildings.

Parahumans. Capes. People with near unbelievable powers who operated on either side of the law made their homes bases in the empty walls of the district even as they presented themselves in costumes both awe-inspiring and frightening. Or, in the case of the two parahumans currently running through the back alleys of the district, dressed in the most ridiculous things imaginable.

The taller of the pair wore a gold-tan mask that made his face appear to elongate into a long muzzle with a cartoonish grin and eyes above the nose. Atop his head was a blonde wig was stylized to appear almost like a rabbit's ears. Around his neck, he wore a bright red scarf that rested on top of a purple tank top with a large white O painted at its center.

The other man… the other man was dressed as a giant blue frog. It’s too long arms flapped as the man struggled to keep up with his friend, his face sweating as the material turned out to be less breathable than he had hoped.

“Are, are we almost there?” The question struggled to come out, the man’s breath catching in his throat as he tried to regain control of his lungs.

“We really need to get you running out more bro.” The other teen’s voice came out through a broad grin in a cheery baritone, “You’ve been spending way too much time in the lab.”

The frog man, better known to most of Brockton Bay as the villain Leet, gave his friend a half-hearted glare, “It’s because I spend so much time in the lab that we got away.” He had created a line of sight teleportation device that had helped them escape the back of the transport. Like he had thought it had made for an amazing escape. Unfortunately, it had proven to have a short shelf life.

Like a number of his latest inventions. At least it didn’t explode too bad. He could probably salvage some bits of it.

“We still had to run miles man. With Vista on our tails.” Uber, his partner, and overall bro, said with an exaggerated shudder. “She’s a vicious little thing man, I don’t care how the Heroes try to market her.”

“Stop being a baby.”

“You can’t make me!” He proclaimed loudly, getting a laugh out of his friend. “C’mon man, just another block or two before we get home. And my fingers are sore from getting out of those PRT cuffs. Trickier than they look.”

Leet groaned but flopped after his friend at an easier pace now that they were all but home free. Home, in this case, being a rundown warehouse that they had renovated with quick made walls and generators. It wasn’t much but it had room for his lab and for Uber to practice so it was home.

It also had a decently concealed security system that made sure the homeless couldn’t get in and try squatting, again.

“Still, overall I think we had a good show.” Uber said, typing in the code to open their ‘front door’. “Especially the last bit, that escape was fun. Very GTA.”

“Hey! Maybe that can be out next show. It’d be pretty easy to do too. Steal a car, get into a… car… chase…” His voice began to trail off as he took in the sight of his home.

The furniture was flipped, the TV was missing along with all of their game systems, and the most telling thing about the scene were the seven sets of rabbit costumes that laid discarded on the floor. It didn’t take long for them to put the clues together but he felt more numb than angry.

Wasn’t he supposed to be angry?

“They took the VR system.” He heard someone say in a small voice, belatedly recognizing it was his voice. He couldn’t wrap his head around the idea of the guys doing this to them. They had done at least half a dozen jobs together, did that not warrant some form of comradery? An honor among thieves? “I was going to see if I could salvage the neural interface from it…”

He didn’t know how long he stood there for, frozen and staring at his disturbed property, but it was long enough for Uber to search the rest of the building. “Dave” He called out Leet’s real name, enough to snap him out of his stupor, “You should come see this.”

Something about the tone of his voice made his legs freeze up and his stomach to drop. He felt as if he were moving through molasses as he finally moved, tracking his friend’s voice to the back of their home. What he saw drained what little blood he had left in his face.

The door to his lab was open.

The steel door was still in one piece and the advanced lock was still in place but the wall next to it was ripped apart. Drywall caking the hall, leaving wooden paneling and studs plain to see.

A movie line played in his head, “Secure lock, sturdy lock, completely unbreakable. The walls? Not so much.” He couldn’t place it and he didn’t care to. He all but stumbled forward, dread firmly setting in as he crossed the threshold.

The room was empty, or damn near close. Most of the heavy machinery was still there but it seemed that anything that wasn’t bolted down or weighed less than a hundred pounds was gone.

His legs shook and gave out at the sight.

He was ruined.

Dave had an amazing power, one that made him more than what he used to be. It’s what made him a part of the elite. He could build anything. If you could dream it he could make it.

Freeze ray? Done. Flight belt? First week easy. Transforming car? Tell him what you wanted it to change into.

But he could only build each of these miracles once. And the closer he came to a previous invention the more likely it was going to fail, explosively. He needed his old machines to work around the limitations of his power. So that he could jerry rig something new from the old.

But if he didn’t have the old how could he create something new? If he couldn’t create something new then what was he?

A hand landed on his shoulder and didn’t bother to look up. The reassuring squeeze did nothing for his spirits. “We’ll find it, Davey, we know where most of these guys live. They should have thought of that before stealing from us.” There was a menace in his voice that David tried to take comfort in but he couldn't bring himself to.

Especially when he thought of what was taken. “They took the Medigun Eric.” He vaguely realized that he was trembling. “How am I supposed to make anything without that? What if something goes wrong?”

“We’ll get it back David, we’ll get it all back. Don’t you worry.”

 

-0-0-0-0-0-

 

Danny Hebert often found that he was stretching the definition of a dockworker. Dredging up jobs and contracts out of prospective employers for simply being near the oceanfront. Sometimes he half joked that they were a union of security guards and salvagers.

The joke didn’t make it any less true or any less difficult.

The Construction Union fought them on a number of jobs and the city was becoming increasingly stingy with their contracts. There was a full grown tree of bitterness in the local government aimed at the Dockworkers Association. Planted, with admitted justness, due to the actions of the rioters in the 90s.

Poor Matt hadn’t even been involved with the riots, he had begged for cooler heads to preveil. But no one listened and Matt ended up taking the blame, stepping down as the Association President with the birth of the Boat Graveyard.

City hall’s resentment was likely fanned from all of Danny’s numerous attempts at revitalization. But, as his late wife often said, he was a pig headed man and wouldn’t give up. Not while he still believed that his city could get better, that it could truly live again instead of just going through the motions.

So, despite the likely rejection coming his way he still worked on. Throwing his all behind each project and problem put in front of him. How could he not when it felt like if he stopped that everything would fall apart.

A knock came at his door, dragging him away from the proposed contract with the storage chain taking over some of the beachfront, “Come in.” He called, half distractedly with his eyes still skimming the paper and his teeth gnawing at the end of a pen.

Dorothy, the office secretary, was a stout woman with a smiling face that seemed to have never seen a frown. She wore a simple skirt and blouse with a color scheme that could only be called ‘bright’. But what really caught his attention about her was the cup of steaming coffee in her hand.

“Door, you’re a lifesaver.” He praised, setting aside the contract for the first time in nearly an hour to accept the cup.

“Well, someone has to make sure you boy’s don’t fall asleep at your desk.”

“That was one time!”

Her lips took an amused twist, “Oh, really? Then it must have been someone else I saw napping here the other day.”

“That was my lunch break and I just pulled an all nighter”

“Then a chewing out would serve you right.” She said with hands on her hips, “Leaving your poor daughter home alone like that.”

Danny took a long sip of his coffee, not meeting the woman’s eyes as she squinted at him. Guilt easily rising once again as she stared down at him and he remembered just how many times he had done just that to his daughter, “Taylor’s fourteen, old enough to stay home alone for a night.”

Dorothy gave a snort, “If only I could have trusted my boys like that at her age. I don’t think I would have come home to a house if I did.” Danny gave a small chuckle at that, remembering all the exasperated stories Dorothy had regaled to the office about her boys over the years.

The woman suddenly snapped her fingers, “Ah, before I forget, Jared wanted to know if you had time tomorrow to go over itinerary for the Union meeting.”

“Alight, give me a sec,” Danny had to brush aside a good tower’s worth of paper to find his calendar book, “Alright, according to this I’ll be free on the ninth around 2 and Thursday around the same time. Can you see if he’s fine with either?” Something about those dates was bugging him. He couldn’t place his finger on it but there was something at the back of his skull nagging at him.

“Can I walk all of ten feet? Why yes, yes I can.” She gave him a wave he absently returned, studying his calendar book like it was a piece of new age art that Anne used to love and he didn’t quite get. He hemmed and hawed over it, trying to puzzle his way through to a discovery.

He hummed at the date for a good minute before flipping the page, thinking that maybe he had forgotten a meeting later in the week. It was until the date of that Friday was staring him in the face did he realize what he had forgotten.

He had somehow lost his balance while sitting completely still, barely keeping himself in his chair and the calendar in his hand. His stomach had dropped as the room spun and a cold sweat threatened to break across his back.

How could he have forgotten about June 11th? How could he forget what was literally the most important day of his life?

How could he have possibly forgotten Taylor’s birthday?

Not only the date but he had forgotten to get her anything. No gift, no cake, he didn’t even bother asking her if she wanted to have Emma over for a birthday dinner. God, he had never felt so low.

What would Annette say if she saw this?

He stood with that thought, his legs easily carrying him out the door. He had to fix this. It was fixable. There was time to repair his stupidity.

Taylor used to love that sushi place off of the Boardwalk, it was a bit expensive but it would be worth it. And maybe he could call Alan, see if Emma wanted to join them. Then he could finish the day with ice cream at that new place off of Third.

“Danny? Where you off to?”

“I’ve got to pick something up Door. I’ll be back soon.”

That just left a gift.

What should he get? A gift card seemed too impersonal. Was she too old for stuffed animals now? Probably. Clothes? No, he didn’t think his daughter was into fashion. Besides, he didn’t want a repeat of the training bra incident.

Shaking the memory out of his head Danny decided he would think of something when he got to the mall. That place was basically designed with the idea of last minute gift shopping.

 

-0-0-0-0-

 

Taylor let out a scream as soon as she got home, the frustrated sound echoing through the row house’s halls. Her dad wasn’t home and wouldn’t be for another good few hours. Which was just as well. She needed time to decompress, not a barrage of questions.

She slammed her backpack onto the foyer floor and stomped her way to the kitchen. It was all a bit dramatic but she had a long day so she felt justified in her childish behavior. Especially since she was alone and no one could judge her.

As the kettle boiled and she searched the fridge for something to eat, she wondered what the hell could have happened to Emma to make her such a bitch.

Or maybe it was something she did? Something she did wrong? Something that could destroy a lifetime of friendship so thoroughly?

No, she couldn’t believe it was that simple. And even if it was there was still no reason for Emma to target her so.

To ruin her textbooks before she turned them in, leaving her with several bills from the school for her dad to pay.

To have kept a piece of her broken flute, a precious memento from her mother that they had defiled earlier that year, to pierce it through several pictures of her her mother. Pictures that had crude and rude things added to them.

How they had gotten that into her locker she did not know. How she kept her temper was another mystery she wasn’t sure she could ever solve. Emma just couldn’t leave the memory of her mother alone.

Emma had said it was a belated birthday gift, claiming she had all but forgotten it until her dad tried to invite her to Taylor’s birthday dinner. She had a good laugh over that, asking if Taylor had any real friends in the world and showed disgust at the very idea of spending time with her former friend.

A part of her wanted to show the “gift” to a teacher. To show physical proof to her claims so that maybe she could get something more then offers of mediation.

But she couldn’t bear even the idea of showing those pictures to anyone else. Her teeth clenched just at the thought of them. She couldn’t have thrown them out fast enough, keeping only the piece of the flute in hopes to fix what was broken.

The flute still laid in her room, cleaned as best as she could make it but still unplayable. Nothing but a useless piece of wood and metal kept only out of sentimentality.

She tried not to think about it. She tried to focus on the smell of Earl Grey brewing in honeyed water, to think of how relaxing it would be. But in the end her teeth ended up gnashing and another scream worked its way up from her belly as her hand slammed to the counter, tea splashing out of its cup.

She consoled herself with the knowledge that they were in the last week of school and that she would soon have months worth of reprieve. That almost calmed her down.

Still, as she set down a plate of birthday sushi and teas down in the living room, she wished that she had let her temper and fist fly. It would have been worth any punishment to wipe that smug, condescending, look off of Emma’s face.

But she rose above the impulse as her mother taught her to. Someone had to honor her mother’s teachings and memory, especially if Emma was so insistent on defiling it all.

She was reaching for the remote, hoping to drown out her day with mindless distraction, when something caught her eye. Her birthday present from her dad.

Her only gift that hadn’t been a cruel joke.

She wasn’t sure if she liked it or not, honestly. She appreciated that her dad had tried but she had never been one for video games. She had always thought that they were a mindless time sink for violent behavior.

But damn if mindless violence didn’t sound exactly what she needed.

The game system, a Bridge according to the side of the box, still laid unopened since it’s unwrapping and took her a moment to set up. She briefly struggled with the wires but she must have done it right as the screen easily lit up and asked for a disk.

That gave Taylor another pause, after all, she had options. He father said the store clerk recommended them to give Taylor a sample of “different styles of gameplay”. Taylor and her dad agreed he probably got swindled but Taylor was now feeling just a bit more grateful for that greedy employee.

The first game she picked up she decided against immediately, basketball really didn’t seem like it was going to give her what she was looking for. The opportunity for some cathartic violence.

The same went for the puzzle game with a guy falling through a hole on the cover and what she assumed was a life simulator game.The next two games looked to be more promising. Much more promising.

The first one had a blonde man and a wolf on the cover. The back of the case showed the man swinging the sword at various monsters and the wolf jumping at them. It also looked to have fishing? But the second game won the competition for one very simple reason.

It was rated M for Mature.

She didn’t know much about video games but she knew that meant violent. And violent was what she was looking for.

She slid the game in and took her seat, popping in a piece of dynamite roll as she waited for everything to load. The system asked her a few questions for the game, the brightness, the difficulty, the interface. In the end, she just set everything to default and pressed start.

That was when everything went wrong.

A great jolt rushed up from her controller, tingling through her spine and slamming into her brain. She was sure her breath caught in her throat as the sensation began to overwhelm her.

And then she blinked. She blinked and she was no longer in her living room. Instead, she sat in a smoke filled room lined with chairs. An intercom dinged as the room shook periodically and a woman in a blue stewardess uniform walked down the aisle.

Was she on an airplane?

She blinked again and her ears were greeted to the sound of screams. Her lungs strained, her body felt weightless, and her ears rang as she suddenly found herself submerged in frigid water.

Luggage and wreckage sank rapidly around her as she struggled to the surface, every inch of her screaming for air. She broke the surface with what she was sure was the greatest gasp of air she had ever taken in her life, the air tainted by the smell of smoke.

Near everywhere she looked there was fire. Plane wreckage surrounded her and she did not hear a single cry for help.

Was she the only survivor? How did she even get there? Was she in the middle of the ocean?

These questions had to wait for when she wasn’t at the risk of drowning or burning alive. So she swam to the only area that wasn’t covered in debris and fire, a lighthouse that had remained miraculously untouched.

She called out, asking if anyone was there but she wasn’t sure if her voice carried very far with how she was shivering. The door was open though and, hopefully, they wouldn’t mind her going in where it wasn’t raining and she could get warm.

The first thing she noticed when she entered the lighthouse was the giant statue looking down on her with grim features molded onto its bronze face. Beneath the man’s face was a large red banner with golden letters.

‘No Gods or Kings, Only Man’

The second thing she noticed was how the door slammed behind in her. She hoped it was just the wind.

She called out again, still shivering and unsure if she was heard. But she must have as a light had flared to life in the back of the building, leading to a staircase and what looked like a fancy elevator.

Were they leading her somewhere because they noticed what had happened? Or did they have other plans? They wouldn’t bring her to them just to kill her, right?

Her hand near moved on its own, pulling the lever and jolting the room to life as it began trekking downwards. Outside the elevators window, she could see that she was actually sinking, fish swimming by carefully carved numbers telling her how far down she was going.

An old timey video began playing, taking up the view of the window. A man’s voices spoke in smooth and impassioned tones as he decried the government and religion. Shaming them for holding back the artist and industrialist.

Taylor thought he was a bit full of himself but when she saw what he chose she couldn’t help but feel awed. A great city, a metropolis, shined bright in neon underneath ocean waves. The elevator, or submarine, or whatever it was, was taking her on a long tour between buildings letting her witness great statues that rivaled the whales that swam between what would have been city lanes and jellyfish that glowed nearly as bright as the neon signs surrounding them.

She could hear other people talking now, on the radio that had apparently been next to her the entire time but she could barely find it in herself to pay attention to their words, too caught up within the great sights before her.

Her ride was pulling into a stop just then, gravitating to a series of rings that led into a building. She found herself excited, wondering just what lay within the wonder before her.

The first thing she saw was a man begging for his life as a woman gutted him alive.

 

-0-0-0-0-

 

Danny had gotten home late that night, nearing nine as he walked through the door. Not even a week and he was already breaking his promise to himself to not do that anymore, or at least not as much.

He hoped that Taylor wouldn’t mind too much.

But as he walked in he found he didn’t have to worry. Taylor seemed to have finally cracked open her gift and was having a grand time with it going by how intently she was looking at the screen.

He winced as the screen was covered in blood as her character seemed to die from what looked like impalement by drill. Maybe that game hadn’t been such a great pick, it seemed way too violent. But Taylor didn’t seem to mind as her character stepped out of the room it was transported to and came rushing out.

Well, at least she was enjoying it. He was worried that he had made a bad pick, and wasted a decent amount of money on the game system but now he felt better.

He yawned as he went up the stairs, “Try not to stay up too late, honey. You still got school tomorrow.” Not that he minded too much, the school year was almost over and it wouldn’t kill her to stay up a little past her bedtime.

 

AN:

Hope it was good


	7. Immersion Ch2

The tunnels were damp and rusted, groaning as the weight of the ocean pressed down upon the city of Rapture. Dim lights lined the halls, flickering intermittently, giving birth to odd, deep, shadows.

Shadows that seemed to move and shift, hiding things deep within them. Things that had once been human, but were now something else. Something less.

Taylor gripped her wrench just a bit tighter, the heavy tool having already saved her life from the crazed denizens of the underwater labyrinth. Atlas, no mister, had called them splicers. That they had once been people before they injected too much of the power granting drug called Adam. Now they had gone mad, twisted in both body and mind.

Taylor took a self-conscious glance towards her left hand where her veins swelled and gave off a steady neon blue glow as tiny bolts of power snapped between her fingertips. She had taken the same drug as they had, multiple times. Was what happened to those deformed people her fate if she kept going on as she had?

But she had to. She had to if she wanted to live through the hellhole that she now found herself in.

She needed power if she wanted to survive the torments that Rapture kept throwing at her. Perhaps escape would be a better term, survival didn’t seem to be an issue for her within the city’s wall.

Taylor was so caught up in her thoughts, she almost missed the scraping shrieks of hooks against metal. She hurriedly brought her hand up, pointing the lightning covered fingers towards the ceiling even as the deformed man hurtled down.

She screamed, first in fright as her shot went wide and then in pain as the splicer’s red hot hooks sunk into her. Her vision blurred a red tint as the hooks found her again and again.

Before she could black out from the pain or die from blood loss, to finally escape the nightmare she lived, the world zoomed by her. The tunnels blurred past her as an unseen force dragged her down the decaying halls she so feared and stuffed her into a tube. Stuffed her into a tube and brought her back from the brink of death.

She couldn’t escape the city by dying. It had happened too many times for her to care to count. Her only choice was to keep moving, to keep going, to keep dying.

Over -

The gardens were surprisingly beautiful, a sharp contrast to the devastation she had found in the rest of the city. They were nearly untouched and even the lights had seemed brighter there than the rest of the city.

And then the laughing started.

A man appeared in a burst of red energy and embers, his fist bright with fire. “Right here asshole!” he yelled as he flung balls of fire at her.

-and over-

As she stepped around the corner a spotlight fell on her and an alarm started to blare. Turret guns and flying security bots came to life with bright red lights as she tried to back away, but it was too late.

Bullets ripped into her before she could run.

-and over-

Two whales danced in an infinite ocean. Jellyfish stars glowed as the whales broke apart and into school upon school of fish, the groups swimming around rising plateaus that seemed uncountable.

One shark among the uncountable thousands upon millions broke from the rest, swimming right towards her.

-and over-

The ground shook as the monster hidden in a diving suit charged. It’s whale song of a roar nearly over taking the scream of its drill as it pierced her chest.

“You rescued me Sir Bubbles!” A little girl said with a giggle, hugging onto the monstrosity even as Taylor was dragged away.

-again.

She just wanted it to end. One way or another she wanted it to end. She hurt too much. The phantom pains of her deaths haunting her as she staggered along what was left Rapture’s roads, trying to find the ever elusive exit.

She was just so tired.

*Player one unconscious, logging out*

-0-0-0-0-

Taylor woke with a cold sweat and a pounding heart, her frantic eyes searching the room. To her surprise she wasn’t standing in a glass tube, instead, she was lying on her family’s old sofa with a blanket carefully tucked in around her. The room wasn’t lit by neon filtered through murky ocean water but by sunlight spilling in past familiar curtains. 

Was she home?

But how? Atlas had said that they were in the middle of the Atlantic! Though maybe in retrospect, she was putting far too much faith in a little voice she had only met over a radio.

Or maybe, her rational mind said as it woke, it was all just a bad dream. A nightmare brought on by a too violent video game and some bad sushi. Her stomach turned as the memories came pouring back in, waking her up completely.

Why was it she could remember bad dreams so clearly but good ones she forgot in seconds?

She tasted bile as a hiccup snuck up out of her throat, but she managed to hold down the rest. Apparently, violent video games were not what she needed.

Taylor let out a groan as she stood, her blanket falling to the hardwood as she rose. She blinked at it, wondering momentarily how the cloth had gotten there and blinked again as she wondered where her glasses had gone.

The image of her father checking on her came easily to her mind. It was a sweet and comforting thought, soothing even. Enough so to calm the last of her nerves back down to manageable levels.

With her glasses recovered from the coffee table, she glared at the TV stand where the console had the gall to look innocent. She would have glared at her plate of sushi too if it were still there but apparently her father had cleaned that up too last night.

She let out a yawn as she moved into the kitchen earning a smile from the man sitting at the table.

Her father was a thin man with thick glasses and a hairline that was losing the war with his forehead, but he was not a meek looking man. For what he lacked in width he made up for in height, towering over near everyone else Taylor had ever met. And when he was angry… he seemed to take up the entire room as he loomed over you.

She had only seen it twice in her life but the image of it had stuck with her.

“Morning sleepy head.” He greeted over his newspaper with a pleased smile on his face, “Have fun last night?”

Not really, no. But she didn’t say that instead she held a hand over her belly and said, “I think the sushi’s gone bad.”

Taylor winced as the grin left her father’s face as he set down the paper. He reached her in two strides, hesitant hands feeling at her forehead, “You do feel a bit clammy. How’s your stomach feeling?”

“Twisty.” She told him honestly, causing her father to hum as if he were a doctor trying to make a diagnosis.

“How’d you sleep last night?”

Again she was honest, “Bad. Nightmares…” She hesitated, “I don’t think the sushi mixed well with the videogame.”

He grimaced and the flash of guilt on his face made Taylor feel a stab of her own, “I thought I saw you tossing last night but I figured it was just the heat… Do you need me to call you out from school?”

Taylor shook her head at that near immediately, barely a thought going into the action. As tempting as that sounded she didn’t like the taste of it. It had the bitter tang of giving up, of defeat, something she tasted all too many times the other night. “There’s only two days left in the year, I think I can last. If I can’t I’ll go to the nurse.”

He didn’t look convinced, but he eventually nodded, obviously none too happy about it. “You will call me if you change your mind. Just leave a message with Dorothy if you need anything, alright?”

Taylor gave a nod.

“Good, now go get ready. I’ve still got time before work so I’ll try to make something to help settle your stomach. Should be done by the time you get done.”

Taylor obliged, debating giving him a hug before walking through the living room and up the stairs to get started with her morning routine. The shower’s warm water made her feel good, easing muscles she hadn’t known were tense and giving order to the mess she called hair. Her locks had not agreed with the sofa’s cushions. Though as much good as the water did her it did nothing for the new bags under her eyes.

They made her thin form appear all the more gaunt, even sickly. Her cheek bones now had a sunken appearance and her too wide lips looked all too pale.

She looked like a mess, though she supposed that if anyone asked Emma or her little friends they would say it wasn’t much of a change. That was something she wasn’t looking forward to later in the day. Still, theoretical opinions aside, that sushi induced nightmare had done a number on her. At least now with her hair combed and her teeth brushed she felt a little more human.

“Taylor!” Her dad called from what sounded like the foot of the stairs, “I’ve got to head out! Your breakfast is on the table! Call me if you need anything!”

“Ok!” She shouted back as she zipped up her lite hoody, “Have a good day at work!”

“You too!” he said as the door snapped shut with Taylor shaking her head. ‘You too’? Like she was going to work too or something.

She was downstairs not three minutes later with a bit more pep in her step as she walked to the kitchen. There was a bowl of porridge and a cup of orange juice at the table, she smiled at that.

Though the breakfast was missing something. Her morning caffeine.

An easy enough fix, just a refill of the tea kettle and a flip of a switch and her water was heating up. It would take a few minutes but she had time, the bus wasn’t due to arrive for another twenty something minutes and the stop was not even a five minute walk away. And she needed her daily injection of caffeine.

She sat at the table sighing contently as she settled into her chair. The smell of oatmeal making her feel like she had finally recovered.

Then she made a face when she took the first bite. He had put too much honey in. She hadn’t liked it that sweet since she was a kid. Still, it was nice of him, though he seemed to be doing that a lot lately. Trying to be nice. It was a bit weird.

Nice but weird.

She picked up her dad’s discarded newspaper, reading it more as a way to distract her from the taste of the too sweet oatmeal than anything else. She’d never been one to really care about the news. Maybe it was because the world was too depressing or, more likely, she had too many of her own problems to pay much attention to what was happening around her.

With another mouthful down and a careful ear out for the kettle, she read the front page news. Max Anders, the guy who owned Medhall the big pharmaceutical company in town, was donating money to the local museum after some Parahuman named Circus robbed them and  
Mayor Christner was apparently unveiling a new initiative downtown that would supposedly create new jobs.

She couldn’t imagine that last piece of news had pleased her dad any. He was always complaining that City Hall was investing all it’s time in the Downtown area while the Docks suffered. She was a bit surprised by how cheerful he had seemed this morning if this was what he had been reading.

More interesting was one of the side articles. Apparently Uber and Leet were responsible for three home break ins where they severely beat two men, with the third having been away from home at the time. The police, according to an inside source, had linked each of the men to Uber and Leet themselves. Former minions who had obviously done something to piss the two villains off.

Honestly, it was hard to remember that those two were actually supervillains, they were just so… lame. They raced around town on go-karts and floated across buildings with balloons wrapped around their waist while the live streamed all their dumb little adventures, and their failures. Their many embarrassing failures.

And then they do stuff like this. Beating up their minions, punching hookers, stomping on turtles, ect. It was like they were bipolar, going from funny to vicious at a rate that gave her whiplash.

She set that thought aside with the paper as the kettle bubbled and whistled. The secret to a good cup of tea was to have the honey at the bottom of the cup and to pour hot water directly over the bag instead of just plopping it in. It led to a richer flavor, or so her mother believed and she wasn’t inclined to disagree.

She stirred the cup absently as she sat back down, letting the tea steep and brew in the water. Shouldn’t be much longer, which was good considering nothing else interesting seemed to be happening in her not so little town.

She absently took her first sip as she read the funny pages and had her eyes bulged as a strange sensation swept over her. A familiar sensation. It was as if she was filling up a tank she didn’t know, didn’t want to know, was there.

She had to put down her tea before it sloshed everywhere.

She stared at her trembling fingers, flexing them as horror started to build in her. In the game, in that had given her those horrid nightmares, in Bioshock, there had been a power bar. A limit to how many times she could use injectable super powers. A limit that could be refilled when depleted with a substance called EVE or, which she had much preferred, by drinking some soda or a coffee.

By drinking caffeine.

With a shaky, hopeful, breath she flipped a mental switch that had suddenly made itself known. She let out a choked sob as lightning snapped to life between her fingers and her veins became neon bright. Her whole body felt warm as the power spread over her and sweat started to break out across her back, a sweat not born from the new warmth.

Lifting her other hand, she saw that it was the mirror image of its twin. Veins bulging against skin as the electricity coursed through her and cracked between her hands.

Was she still dreaming? Was it ever a dream?

Had she really gone to Rapture? Had she really died?

Tears started to prick from her eyes. 

No, no that couldn’t be right. It couldn’t have been possible. She couldn’t have ended up in the middle of the Atlantic, in the middle of some post-apocalyptic underwater city that should have only existed in a videogame.

How could it have happened? How could it have felt so real?

A thought hit her. A horrible little thought that had her eyes tracking downward, her head slowly turning until they landed onto the newspaper. Her mind replayed the news of the day, remembering the article that had caught her eye. An article about how Uber and Leet, the Videogame themed Villains, had been going around beating up their minions.

Going around beating up minions, one by one, almost as if they were searching for something. Something she probably had.

A game system that granted powers.

She reached out for the paper, wanting to search it for any clues that she was right. As soon as her fingers touched the paper it lite on fire, causing Taylor to squawk and try to slap the flame out. Her efforts just made things worse as her electric fingers started more fires then they stopped, forcing her to dump her cup of tea on the flames to stop it.

She let out a cry at the soaked and charred paper, her hands held high so they didn’t set fire to anything else. She just wanted them to go away, she wanted the electricity to stop.

And then it did, like someone had removed a tab from its slot. Her veins dimmed and the lightning sparked away into nothingness. 

“Rapture wasn’t real,” the sigh that came out sounded more like a sob than anything else. Knee wobbling relief mixed with fear sank into her as she fell back into her chair. “It was just a part of a game… a game.”

It surprised even her how fast she was up and into living room. When the game system slammed to the floor she briefly worried for the wood but the sight of the undamaged casing infuriated her.

She tossed it, stomped on it, jumped on it.

Not a scratch.

She growled, dragging the system down the basement stairs by its cables taking an almost perverse pleasure as it clacked and thumped against each step. She slammed it to the concrete floor and was frustrated to find that again there was no apparent damage.

She reached for her father’s toolbox and grabbed the first handle her fingers came across. She slammed the tool with all her might, hands ringing and bones jarring as she brought her weapon home again and again. But still, there wasn’t a mark.

“Why!” Smack, “Why!” Smack, “Why, won’t you break!” Each word and swing seemed to add all the more fire to her. Her blows raining down harder with every sound, until she couldn’t take it anymore. 

On ingrained instincts, she raised her hand. The tab that had disappeared earlier slid into a new slot and lightning lashed out from her fingertips. The smell of burning dust and ozone filled the air raged in Taylor’s nose as she took in unsteady breaths, trying to calm down.

She found she couldn’t. Not in that cramped dark space. Not with her hand glowing with power. Not with a wrench clenched knuckle white in her fist.

Her breathing just couldn’t seem to stay even and her heart raced as her eyes started to notice just how dark it was down there. How the shadows seemed the shift in the light, how they seemed to move. How they could hide something.

She kicked the still intact system out of her way as she ran up the stairs, her hand still glowing and wrench still gripped tight.


	8. Immersion Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Probably going to make this into its own story soon

Danny Hebert groaned as he woke with the sun, once more cursing his dirty habit. Every morning it was the same thing, no matter the day of the week or what he had done the night before. Danny blamed his father, as the man had all but dragged his son kicking and screaming into the habit. 

Danny loathed being an earlier riser but no matter how hard he tried to master the elusive art of sleeping in he found himself wide awake at 6 AM near to the dot every morning. He eventually gave up trying to break the habit, it was too ingrained into who he was. Besides, he hadn’t had much reason to stay in bed over the last few years.

He had to shake his head quickly to dispel an image from forming. An image of a drowsy beauty resting her head on his chest, of bleary eyes looking up at him through a mess of brown bangs. The sleepy smile that floated to the top of his memory caused a deep, rib groaning, ache in his chest.

He almost regretted that it was the weekend, he could have used the distraction that the job provided him. Pouring himself into finding solutions, being of use and just making a difference was satisfying work. Frustrating at times, most of the time, but satisfying all the same.

Oddly, when he went down for his morning coffee, he found that the kitchen lights were already on. He almost sighed at the sight, as he already had a good idea of what he’d find.

And, sure enough, there was his daughter sitting at the table, eating her cereal with an almost mechanically efficiency. The early hour didn't bother him all that much but one look at his daughter and the bags under her eyes told him that, yes, tv was right. It was unnatural for teenagers to be up before noon during summer vacation.

 

He tried to put on a strong face, “Morning Taylor, how long have you’ve been up?” The question felt lacking as it left his mouth. Missing the concern he felt and the demand for answers he needed.

Taylor simply shrugged, “A few hours.”

Danny hummed to hide the sound boiling in his chest, he didn’t know whether it was a groan or a growl. Danny himself had gone to bed just before midnight, heading up the stairs before his daughter. That meant she slept less than the six hours he did. For all he knew “a few hours” meant no sleep at all.

“Nightmares again?”

“Just wasn’t sleepy.” That was a bold faced lie if he had ever heard one. Danny had seen the signs, he would have had to be deaf and blind not to. Taylor hadn’t gotten a proper night’s sleep all week, not since she had him call her out from school. And it had been too long for her to keep blaming it on bad sushi.

He wanted to know what was going on with his daughter. He wanted to shake her until she spilled all her problems to him, to tell him what was wrong so he could fix it.

A good father would have done that, he would have pressed her for information. But he didn’t, he hesitated. Fear gripped him, made him swallow his words as his mouth closed with a click. Afraid to push for fear that he would ruin what little progress he had made in fixing their relationship, that he could push her away from him in his desire to help.

Instead, he placed his hand on her shoulder and gave her a squeeze. “Well, if you are having problems sleeping let me know. Your old man knows a few old tricks for that.” He gave her a smile and hoped he made it obvious that he was there for her. That he was there for if she needed him, even if it’s just for bits of advice.

He did that, right?  
She knew that, right?

-0-0-0-0-0-

Not too long after he dad left Taylor was out the door herself. The rattling of the AC unit haunted the shrinking walls and sounded all too much like the clink clacks of metal against metal for her comfort. She couldn’t stay in that house without expecting something to drop down on her from above.

She couldn’t stay long without her dad home, without some presence to tell her that she was in reality and not in Rapture.

So, walks had quickly become a regular thing for her over the last few days. The fresh air and open space were a relief for her weary mind and restless body. Still, said weary mind tended to wander on those strolls down the city’s streets. Leaving her with no clear destination as her feet took step after step for her.

Though she took these walks to clear her mind, her thoughts, as usual, fell once again to the news. She had taken up watching the evening news in what had felt like an act of self preservation as she kept an ear out for any mention of Uber and Leet as they worked their way across the city, moving their way down an apparent list of former minions.

Three men had already been hospitalized and over a dozen homes had been broken into.

She dreaded the day that they came to her doorstep and she knew they were coming, they had to be. They had to be looking for their power granting game system, they just had to be. It only made sense. They couldn't just leave it out there, it was too precious. Too dangerous.

Maybe that was why the console still laid under her basement steps where she kicked it, untouched, instead of the trash or at the bottom of the bay. The idea of someone else finding it, discovering instant superpowers, made her shiver. As did the thought of what the enraged duo would do if they found out she had gotten rid of that horrible machine.

She blinked and she suddenly found herself nearing Lord Street, a near two hour walk that had zoomed past her head as she lost herself to thought. She hadn’t planned on buying anything, she barely had the money to, it was just that the Market was one of the safer areas to walk about.

Or, at least, there were fewer gang tags and obvious drug dealers.

It was better than her local park at least, or what the district called a park. It had been years since the city even bothered to clean that and that’s not even getting into the rusting mess they called a jungle gym.

Sights like that made her understand her dad was on about, how right he was that the city falling apart. It wasn’t as bad as Rapture but it was obvious all the same. It made her wonder why he still tried so hard to keep it afloat, to make it better.

It would be better if they just moved away, far away. Maybe somewhere central like Arizona or New Mexico. Somewhere where there was no Emma, no ocean, and much less of a chance of a supervillain breaking into their home.

The streets were nearly empty at the time of day, everyone either at work or sleeping the summer away. It made for an easy walk, no crowds to muscle through and even fewer cars to be wary of. But it also made the few people left on the streets all the more obvious.

And their voices all the more difficult to ignore.

“ - not going back with you! I’m done, out.” Indigent and female was the voice as the sounds of scuffling emanated from the approaching alleyway.

The next voice was very obviously male and more obviously angry, “You ain’t done until I say you are. I made you.”

“You made nothing. I working with you because I needed money and you promised to keep me safe for a cut. Nowhere did I agree that you could own me.”

Taylor couldn’t help herself, curiosity taking a hold of her as she walked passed the mouth of the alley and peeked in. The sight that greeted he was about what she expected from the snip of conversation she heard.

A man and a woman stood red in the face as they snarled at each other, the woman with a firm grip to her duffle bag and the man was holding on just as tight to her arm. Taylor could almost imagine she was witnessing the end of a bad break up but her mind had already built another picture of what was happening from what she had heard.

Whatever the case Taylor had no desire to get in the middle of it or to be dragged into their fight. Trying to put it out of her already stressed mind she walked on.

And then she heard the resounding crack of skin hitting skin and a sharp yell echo behind her.

The sound was like a thunderclap across the street, making her and the others walking by pause once again.

“You can’t just-” The crack and a yelp came once again, “You fucker.”

“You don’t get to quit until I say you can.” The man’s voice was a deep growl, like an oversized dog, and Taylor could just imagine the spittle escaping her lips with every word.

The others in the street simple ducked their head and walked along faster but Taylor, Taylor found herself frozen. Stuck in place by indecision, by an impulse that warred with her common sense.

She knew she should have walked away, that it was the smart choice, the safe choice to make but… It just didn’t feel right.

The sound of scuffling, of struggling, filled her ears as the two fought. Their voices raising again and Taylor could just imagine the man dragging that poor woman further down the alley. “You can’t just- Help! Somebody help!”

Taylor’s feet moved.

She spun and scrambled back to the mouth of the alley where she saw the woman, now red cheeked and bleeding at the lip, try to pull herself free from an unwavering grip. The man didn’t look back, didn’t notice Taylor as she kept moving down the alley in a sprint, but the woman did.

Taylor never saw a face shift so quick, with hope burning its way past the fear in her eyes only to be drowned out again as she got a good look at her rescuer. “No! Go away! Get away!”

That got the man’s attention, pausing just long enough to look over his shoulder and ask himself out loud “What the fuck?”. It was also long enough for Taylor to ram right into him, forcing him to loosen his grip.

It was a chance that the woman didn’t waste as she pulled her arm free and punched the man low, hard. He dropped like a brick, gripping at himself as he glared up, “Bitch”.

Taylor didn’t have time to even wonder who he was talking about before the woman was tugging at her arm, pulling her along into a run, “C’mon. Let’s go.”

The two ran for a block, maybe two, without stopping and the woman’s hand still death gripping Taylor. The woman barely waited to catch her breath to call Taylor an idiot.

“Wait, what?” 

“You’re an idiot.” She repeated, clearer and with enunciation, “I mean, what on earth were you thinking!? Tackling him like that?”

What was she thinking? That someone deserves to have their pleas answered, to have someone actually hear them when they scream in pain alone in a dark alley of a collapsing city. But instead of all of that, she said, “I thought you needed help?”

“I did and I can’t say I’m complaining about getting away from Marco but still,” The woman threw a hand up in the air, “You shouldn’t have run into trouble like that.”

Taylor didn’t know what to say, a bit confused on being admonished for helping. So she said nothing and just stayed quiet, biting her lip in equal parts sudden shyness and the urge to suppress herself from saying anything too stupid.

“Still… Thanks. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t shown up.” Taylor’s eyes snapped up from her feet and witnessed the smile on the woman’s face. It was small, lopsided, and a bit uncertain but it was genuine. “You’re a real hero kid.”

Taylor’s smile was not small or uncertain. “Your welcome.”

The woman looked over Taylor’s shoulder, Taylor looked too but there was nothing there. “So, uh, I was on my way to a Women’s Shelter not too much away, do you mind being heroic for a bit longer? I could use the company.”

Taylor didn’t mind.

The two of them walked for another half hour, chatting to keep each others nerves down. Taylor found out the woman's name was Cindy and until the other day she had been a prostitute, not exactly surprising if Taylor was honest. Apparently, she had gotten into the game because it was "Easy Money" but now wanted out. "The money, which isn't as much as you'd think, wasn't worth the lifestyle."

She wanted to get back to having an actual life that didn't make her feel as grody at night. Taylor could understand that but apparently, her former pimp, the overly aggressive man from back in the alley, couldn't. He apparently didn't like seeing what he considered his merchandise, his product, walk away from him.

The Jerk.

Still, Cindy was away from him now. Hopefully for good if what she believed about the woman's shelter was true. The Campbell's Women's Shelter, according to rumor, kept women from all walks of life and situations safe as they got back on their feet.

Something Cindy needed.

There was much venting but Taylor didn't mind, despite it's one sided nature it was honestly one of the better conversations that Taylor had since High School had started. Which of course had to come up. 

"And here I am complaining about my slutty life to a High school kid... Speaking of, what are you doing out this early? Shouldn't you be in school?"

"... It's Saturday... And Summer Vacation."

"Huh, is it? Well, good for you. Still doesn't explain why you're up so early. I remember having to be pried up from the bed on my days off. So what's the story kid?"

Taylor defaulted to the shrug she had given her father that morning, "Just couldn't sleep, thought it would be nice to take a walk."

Cindy obviously didn't believe her, the woman had a very expressive face, "Uh-huh, well I guess I can't complain about that life choice. So, got any wild and crazy plans for the rest of the summer?"

'Hope supervillains don't break down my door over a video game.' She thought but only gave another shrug. "Not really."

"Well, you should. Got to enjoy these times while you can, you know?" 

"I guess."

"Eh, you'll see what I mean in a few years and regret it. Trust me, live now and while you can... But maybe not as dangerous as you have been, alright?"

Taylor smiled back at the teasing grin, "Sure."

The women's shelter wasn't too much further away, in fact, Taylor could see it from down the street with it's high fence walls and a security guard stationed at a shack near the entrance. The brick building was about half as large as her school with no unbarred windows on the bottom floor. It certainly wasn't a very welcoming looking building but she supposed security won out over aesthetics with the shelter's guest.

"Well, this is me..." Cindy said, pausing just down the road and looked Taylor over. She then shuffled through her bag and pulled out two twenties. "Here, take a cab for me would you? I don't want Marcus taking a swipe at you on the way home okay."

"Um, okay." She said, hesitantly taking the bills, "Thanks."

"No, honey, thank you." And with that, she gave Taylor a tight and awkward hug, "I don't like the idea of where I would be right now if it weren't for you. Thank you."

Taylor patted her on the back with all the awkward energy she had, "You're welcome." There wasn't much else for her to say.

That day Taylor rode home in a beat down Taxi with a few extra dollars in her pocket, a swelling feeling in her chest, and as the car pulled onto her street she realized something.

For a few brief moments, both when she was saving Cindy and then walking her to safely, Taylor found that she hadn’t been dwelling on Rapture. Her mind could actually wander away from the hellscape that had been haunting to her for some many days.

Her mind went to somewhere else. A happy place, a warm place.

Could she keep that feeling? Could she get it back if she started to fade?

If she could feel that way, that heroic, without her power then how would it feel with her power?


	9. Heroes of the Forum (Worm/ME/FoZ/FSN)

Heroes of the Forum  
Prologue:  
-Taylor-  
“Hey.”

Taylor was having a rather pleasant dream. She couldn’t exactly remember the finer details or what it was exactly about but it involved her and a very lovely beach.

“Hey!”

She was also fairly sure there had been a cabana boy somewhere in there. It was rare that she had such pleasant dreams anymore and her mind was almost desperately trying to hang onto the fantasy, doing it’s best to ignore the insistent voice trying to wake her.

But, alas, reality had won out over sleep. As usual.

Consciousness never came quickly for Taylor, she was always a bit of a groggy mess in that first bit of the morning. Her daily jog was helping her work with that practical problem but her power more so.

As if she were blinking her eyes awake of stretching out her arms she could feel her power taking hold of every last bug within her range. Or, more accurately, she was becoming aware of what her swarm held.

The thousands into millions of tiny bits of information came flooding to her mind, informing her of just how many little minions she had and where they were in relation to her. It was that count that tipped her off that something was wrong.

The other night she could have felt a couple million insects within her range, the coming spring steadily increasing their numbers, but at the moment she could feel nearly a billion under her control.

Such a number jump just wasn’t natural.

Her second clue something wasn't right coming when she opened her eyes. In front of her yellow tinted worldview was a hand covered in pale-yellow silk. She was still in her costume. She could vaguely remember putting the newly finished outfit on the night prior, admiring the work she had put it. All that had been left to do was to dye the material.

She could remember contemplating how to do just that when… nothing. Like she had suddenly gone unconscious or someone had suddenly turned off a tv screen. She could only remember a large blank sport filling her memory.

Sitting up and turning her gaze Taylor saw what should have been her first clue that something was wrong. The Voice. The voice that had woke her up was not her father’s. Instead, it belonged to a man in a suit of high tech armor that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Armsmaster. Though the color scheme was wrong, black with a stripe of red along the right arm instead of a white on blue design.

Making it very unlikely the man was the leader of the local superheroes.

The very large gun in his hand made it even more unlikely, “Hey, glad to have you with us.”

Taylor did what any normal girl in her situation would have done, she screamed. The sound of it enough to cause the man to flinch back and distract him from the sound of every bug in the room going deathly still before marching towards her.

Off to the side, something that she didn’t quite hear and definitely didn’t understand. It sounded Japanese, she thought. She heard the language fairly often enough to make a decent identification of it.

It also did not put pleasant thoughts in her head or where she was or why she was there. Especially when the armored man answered back in the same language.

One of the big gangs in her hometown were the Asian Bad Boys, a gang known for accepting Asians of all nationalities and human trafficking. Again, being in an unknown location where a pair of men spoke Japanese did not bring pleasant thoughts to mind.

She did not make the approach of her larger than usual swarm subtle.

Someone curse in another language as the carpets of insects, bugs, and spiders came scurrying forward. The man in armor acted smoothly and quickly, facing the coming swarm with his gun raised in one hand and the other aglow with an orange light. He then shouted something that wasn’t Japanese, his voice commanding as he stepped forward to stand between her and her bugs.

Before she should even blink a redheaded teen was next to him, a rock held tight in his hand as he ignored a barked Japanese word from the gun wielder.

Taylor barely paid any mind to their action or what they meant. Instead, she focused on her splitting her flying bugs from the rest of her swarm, having them curve around the men and create a buzzing cloud behind her.

“Where am I?” She demanded, feeling drastically more confident now that she had her safety blanket. Confident enough to confront her kidnappers. Though she did not feel confident enough to attack a man with a gun.

“Are, are you doing this?” The man asked, lowering his gun until it folded up into a box and clamped down to the side of his leg. Taylor suddenly became aware of just how many boxes the man had clipped to him.

She tried not to gulp. “And they’ll attack too if you don’t answer my question.”

The man slowly raised his hands, “Let’s all just calm down and take a moment.” Off to the side, the not-Japanese voice said something that sounded a bit too snide for Taylor’s liking.

“Answer the question.” She made all her bugs buzz with as much menace as she could. It was apparently enough to echo through the chamber they were all in.

“The truth is that none of us know where we are or how we got here.” His voice was almost eerie in how steady he kept it. Like he didn’t have a worry in the world… and maybe he didn’t. “We woke up here same as you.”

“And I'm just supposed to believe that?”

“Trust me when I say we’re not here to hurt you. And, if we were, wouldn’t it have made more sense for all of us to at least speak the same language? …. Speaking of, would it be too much to hope that you’d have an Omnitool on you would it?”

“Omni… tool?”

The man sighed but kept his hands raised, “Guess so. Look, how about I make some introductions, alright? I'm Commander Shepard with the Systems Alliance. The kid next to me,” He jutted his chin over to the redhead who was still holding the rock, “Is Emiya Shirou. And the girl over there is Louise de La Valliere.” Taylor spared a quick glance to a pink haired girl shying away from her bugs. “How about you, what’s your name.”

“I, um.” Taylor paused in thought, “I don’t have one.”

"You don't have a name?" Disbelief clear in his tone and posture.

“Well, I have a name, obviously. I just don’t have a hero name.”

“A Hero name?” He repeated slowly as if he had never heard such a thing, his arms lowering as the conversation went on.

“You know, a secret Identity.”

The man gave her what she could only assume was a blank stare, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Hey! It’s hard to come up one that doesn’t sound stupid or like a villain. Bug control doesn't’ exactly leave me with a lot of options.”

Shepard mimed as if he were rubbing her eyes over his helmet, “And now we’re dealing with superheroes.” Taylor felt vaguely insulted at that, “Look, how about you just give us your first name? We gave you ours after all. You don’t need to hide here.”

“Says the man in the helmet.”

With an audible sigh, the man reached up and unclamped his helmet, the seals hissing as they were unlocked. Shepard turned out to be a fairly handsome man, obviously so. His blue eyes striking against his light brown skin.

“Is that better?” Taylor gave him a slight nod, feeling a bit dumbfounded at the casual unmasking. She had thought such things were rarely to never done. It seemed like a giant leap of faith on the man’s part, “Good, now let’s try this again. My name is John Shepard but everyone just calls me Shepard, and you are?”

“... Taylor.” She said, calming her buzzing swarm, “My name is Taylor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was going to be more, probably a whole one shot with each characters POV but screw it. I'm not sure if it's writer's block or life but I'm having issues getting pass Taylor in this snip so maybe starting a new chapter would work out better.
> 
> Anyway, this is an old idea I'm finally getting to where Spacebattle's 4 favorite fandoms main characters are used as pawns by two multiversal characters (can you guess the two) using them for what is basically a D&D game against each other where one side is "Helping" the heroes while the other is boosting the monsters in their Dungeon Crawl. My only issue with this story idea that I don't play D&D but I've played Dragon Age and have google so I should be good.
> 
> How old is thia idea and how into it am I?
> 
> I commisioned this pic I'm sure most of you've seen before:  
> https://shadaan.deviantart.com/art/CROSSOVER-ASSAULT-476268371
> 
> Damn, its been 4 years apparently... damn...
> 
> Anyway! Hopefully, there will be more of this or Immersion soon.
> 
> Any advice for this idea or scenes/interactions you hope to see from this?


	10. Weaving Thoughts

A quick write up that's a bit depressing but has lots of potential I think.

 

Weaving Memories

 

Everything, oddly, was numb. She hadn't expected that, she expected pain, alot of it. When that ever growing dragon known as Lung opened his maw she expected nothing less. Yet she didn't feel a thing, not a one.

She could see her hair burn, smell her flesh sizzle, but she was numb to it all.

The only two things she was even remotely aware of were the night sky churning with clouds of smoke and her ever shrinking swarm of bugs. She called everything she could; ants, wasp, termites, mayflies, anything that crossed into her range and had them trickle forth on a single order.

Attack Lung.

Bite him in the eye, inject him with any toxin they had, pour into any hole they could wiggle into. She was not kind about it, she couldn't be. Not when he was going to kill kids, burn their little bodies like he did to her and her swarn.

Even if she just made a nuisance of herself she had to at least slow him down, keep him there until the real heroes arrived. If she did that, accomplish that one thing, she would be content.

She could die happy.

She felt something move through her swarm, something large, and felt her bugs die as it slammed into Lung. And then another one arrived, and another one. Three great big something, all dogpiling the gang leader with a frantic energy.

Taylor tried to move her head to see what the were but nothing cooperated. Her neck, her arms, her core none of them worked. They were, appropriately, dead.

“Hey! Don't think like that.” A voice yelled just before a blonde head stuck itself into her vision wearing a domino mask. “Everything is going to be alright. Helps on the way, okay? Just hold on.” That was nice of her to say, trying to cheer her up but Taylor was okay with the way things were. 

It was okay.  
It was fine.

“No, this is not fine! You hold on! You here that? That's Armsmaster racing his way here on that monster bike of his, just stay awake.” The masked girl must have been a hero, listen to her and how much she wanted Taylor to live. If she knew how much of a waste of space Taylor was maybe she would have felt different.

“C'mon now, now negative thoughts. Stay awake, remember that, stay awake.” or maybe she was a true hero, it was nice to hear someone caring in her last moments. Maybe she could finish what Taylor couldn't.

“... Ki…” Her throat, like everything else, wouldn't work right. Her tongue lulled to the side and her lungs barely exerted the air for that one sound, that was all she could say. But the hero understood, her green eyes moving rapidly as she took the syllable in.

“Ki, kids? You fought Lung because you thought… Jesus Christ.” Her face was pale and horrified but she kept her voice steady enough, “The kids are fine. You saved them, gave them enough time to escape. You did amazing.”

Good. Good. She did something, made a difference. Maybe is she was someone else she would have done more. If someone, anyone, anyone, else had her crappy powers maybe they'd have done better.

“Tattletale.” A voice barked just out of her sight, “We need to go!”

“Give me a minute!”

She, Tattletale, definitely would have done better.

 

\----------

 

Tattletale stumbled into the loft, her stomach churning and her teammates right behind her. They made sound, questioned her, asked what was going on. If she was okay.

She wasn't. And they really didn't care.

Grue did in his way, same with Bitch, they both cared about their own. But didn't, wouldn't, care for the reason why she was so distraught. Why she felt burned to the core and struggled to breath.

She had died for them. Burned alive as she fought beyond death with a swarm of bugs, spiders, and even a few crabs to hold off the strongest cape in the city. She had thought she died fighting for children, that she was saving kids. 

Tattletale laughed at that. If only she had known she was saving uncaring villains in so many senses of the words.

Her power told her so, inferring truths from their body language and the lines between their words. There was some regret and pity, from Grue in particular, but as Regent had so eloquently put it “Better her than me.”. They all thought it.

Of course their crass attitude weren't the only reason she felt so it of sorts.

She made it to the bathroom as another wave of nausea washed in, vomit landing thickly in the sink as another glov passed her throat. She was shit of breath and when she was done she was left starting in the mirror. A mirror that held a reflection that looked paradoxically right and wrong simultaneously.

Her green eyes and blonde hair looked wrong, out of place. Her full lips and button nose were wrong, almost malformed to her mind. Her tits were definitely wrong, though happily so in that case.

Everything about her, bar her skin, should have been darker, longer, thinker. But they weren't. They were how they always been.

Sixteen years of memories said one thing and fifteen years said another.

Memories not her own wove and intertwined themselves into her mind, claiming they belonged there. Yelling that she lived those events.

That she grew up in a row house with a broken step instead of a modern manor. That she had lost her mother to a car accident instead of her brother to suicide.

That she had suffered through hours of that disgusting locker.

Her name wasn't Taylor Hebert's but her memories, the newer half of them, insisted that she was 

She spat out the last tsst of vomit from her mouth, still eyeing herself in the mirror. Well, she wasn't going by her other birth name ethier. She was Lisa and she found the memories didn't mind that.

She needed to sort herself out, take in what was STILL happening to her mind. She needed time, asprin, and a nice long nap. 

Though, she was forced to wonder as her new powers range increased towards her predecessor's, what was in Brockton Bay’s water to make another monster like the Butcher.

 

An:  
Basically, Taylor had a power like the Butcher's where her powers and mind are transferred to another parahuman, provisionally calling it The Weaver line. Two differences in this case being who gets the transfer (the last parahuman you think of before death is targeted by the Shard instead of killer) and that it's more of a memory/cognitive meld aka new body same memories (Think Doctor Who regeneration over schizophrenia). Though I'm debating if the voice in the head option would be more interesting or not.

Lisa's tenure as Weaver 2 is going to filled with subterfuge and intrigue as she uses her new spy network to pull free from Coil and undermine his operations.

Power interaction wise I'm seeing Taylor's multitasking helping the pain of Lisa's Tinker ability (either by handling the data overflow better or pushing the pain into the swarm) as well as giving her alot more data to work with via swarm sense. On the other hand she'd have alot more useless data streaming in, putting her in more tangents than usual.

I have two possible places for Lisa's death in my mind, Bakuda or Levithan, and three possible candidates for the next Weaver. One is LaserDream to put the Weaver line on a clear heroic bend, plus girl did work keeping Taylor alive in the Leviathan fight/she needs to be used more. Two is Dinah after Weaver realizes she's in Coils clutches and the little girl uses her new abilities to help her escape, plus my original title idea for this story was Think Tank. Three, Newter or another Case 53 to start a conspiracy unraveling story on Cauldron.

Thoughts? Opinions?


	11. SpiderLily

A non Taylor PoV

 

Spiderlily

 

Winslow wasn't in bad shape per say, Lily had certainly seen worse when she lived in the city, but it was certainly rough. Graffiti lined the walls both inside and out, lights flickered in the hallways, and the bathrooms we're thick with the smell of smoke. A typical inner school really.

What really unnerved her, what made her take a step back, was the blatant racism. She knew Brockton Bay was home to one of the largest white supremacists groups in the country but it was one thing to know something intellectually and another to experience it. It had been an unpleasant surprise to walk in through the doors and see so many shaved heads, so many kids wearing the empire black and red walking down the halls. Most of them giving her side eye or out right glares as they passed. 

And it wasn't just the visible gang members either but damn near every student, not just the white ones, that walked by did. She knew it wasn't what she was wearing, some fitted jeans and a purple top, and she knew she wasn't THAT good looking to garner so many stares. The reason, unfortunately, was because of the other major racist group in the story.

They were called the Asian Bad Boyz and they, obviously, consisted of only Asians. And they were recruiting, on the first day of the school. Like it was a school club.

“So, where’s your family from?” The boy asked, skinny and wearing a lime green hoody despite the clinging heat. He gave her a smile, Lily gave him a frown 

She was tempted to just say New York, annoyed by the common and rude question, but she knew that wouldn't be good enough here. He wasn't just some curious kid thinking he was being insightful. He wanted to know for a reason, he wanted to find a common ground between them. Whether it was to recruit her or to hit on her she didn't fully know, she could guess, but either way he was going to find himself disappointed.

“Japan.” One word, terse and dismissive, she hoped it was obvious enough.

“Cool! Me too.” He gave her another wide smile, “Do you know what part? My mom is from Kyushu.” He said that like it was something to be proud of, something impressive to be work like a badge of honor. And she supposed it was, his mom survived after all.

“Nope.” Again one word, terse and dismissive. His smile dimmed and his eyes sharpened just a bit.

“Hey now, I'm just trying to be friendly.” He said, raising his hands up in a placating gesture. “And it's good to have friends in the Bay, they can help watch your back for when you're not exactly fitting in.”

He gave a passing white boy in black jeans and a red t a pointed glance, she rolled her eyes. “I'll be fine, thanks.” She said, having enough and shouldering her backpack.

He blocked her way.

“Look I get it. You don't want to get involved with anything sketchy, don't want to be related to anyone criminal, I get it, I really do.” He put a hand over his heart. “I used to be the same way, thought the exact same thing. But I promise you that's not what the Bad Boyz are about. We're about looking after each other because no one else in this city will.”

She said pass him, not saying another word. She had half expected him to try and stop her again, to grab her wrist and make a vahge threat. He didn't. Instead her sighed, shaking his as she walked away, “You'll see that you need us soon enough and you'll be coming to us for help in the end. Everyone does.”

Maybe transferring out of the New York was a mistake.

A mistake she would have to live with for over a year. An she couldn't just back out, not when she volunteered to come.

What a great start to her senior year. She sighed, she hoped that transfer to Arcadia better go through soon.

There was still time before homeroom so the halls were congested with friends catching up from a long summer break as their clicks reformed. Lily just wanted to get to her classroom and wait for the day to blow over, praying that the rest of her schoolmates weren't as annoying.

But getting to her classroom was easier said than done, especially when she wasn't familiar with the school. The crowds altered between walls.and currents, creating new obstacles with near every step. And judging by the “Welcome back Sophomores” banner she ended up getting lost in the wrong part of the school. 

Frustrated as she was she actually groaned when a curly haired girl fell to the ground and spilled her books, disrupting what meager flow of traffic there was as scrambled to collect her papers. More annoyingly was that no one was stopping to help her, they just stepped over her lockers worth of notebooks and papers without more more than a second glance.

In the corner of her yet she could see a gaggle of girls giggling to themselves, pointing at the downed teen as if there were some grand joke. And maybe there was, to them. Lily didn't see anything funny.

Picking up a few notebooks as she passes she locked eyes with a of the girls. She was a redhead, the apparent center of the group, who stopped laughing as she noticed Lily’s stare.

Lily didn't like bullies. she personally thought they were worse than most criminals because at least a crook had a reason for their cruelty. They wanted money, plain and simple. A bully on the other hand was cruel because they wanted to be, because they could, no other reason for that.

Lily kept her gaze on the redhead, not wavering until the other girl broke the staring match with a dismissive huff. She didn't so much as blink as the redhead sauntered away with her little friends, eyes trailing after them as they disappeared down the hallway.

“Um, can I have my books back?” A voice asked, dragging her away from her glaring. Lily looked at the speaker and than looked up. Even hunching as she was the girl was taller than her, a bit of a blow to Lily's ego but she accepted being short a long time ago.

“Oh, yeah, here.” She stumbled a bit as she handed them over. “Does that happen often?” She asked with a jerk of her head where the other girls had walked away.

The tall girl blinked at her from behind her glasses, looking at Lily like she was so sorry of alien creature. “I guess…” she mumbled, shrinking down more into herself, still taller than Lily would ever be.

“Have you talked to a teacher about them? They do anything?” She asked, already knowing the answer but repeated her Saturday morning questions.

The other girl just snorted and looked.like.she wanted to escape.but didn't know how to get her feet to move.

“Figured.” Lily mumbled as she looked the girl over.

Back in New York her friends accused her of having a case of White Knight Syndrome. That she was always looking for a damsel in distress to save. There might have been some truth in that. And why wouldn't there be?

She was a superhero after all.

She held her hand out, “I'm Lily. What's your name?”

The girl looked the hand over, cautiously taking it with a surprising squeeze. “Taylor.” The damsel in distress said, offering her a small smile that had just a bit of hope peaking through.

 

An:  
A Lily PoV romance au where she transfers to Brockton Bay earlier and meets an addokable loner. Or so she thought. A few months later she is dragged across the city by a constantly escalating girlfriend.

Story features:  
Foster parents Ethan and Samantha, aka Assault and Battery

Muscle-sexual Taylor

Lily pretending to work at PRT giftshop as a cover for being a Ward and her friend/grilfriend visits as a surprise. Que rushing to keep cover

Lily having a fit when Sophia joins the Wards but uses opportunity to force PRT and social worker and school to keep closer eye on the probationary ward

Actually attacking Sophia after the Locker who is yelling at Emma for going through with the idea and likely ruining her probation

Meeting Danny

Discovering Taylor is a indie hero 

 

Thoughts? Opinions? Suggestions?


	12. Together

This snip is dual purpose. To A) get an idea out my head and B) to practice fight scenes.

 

Working Title: Together (Work/PR)

 

Aisha hummed a tune to herself as she sorted through her clothes, a beat caught in her head as she tossed shirts and skirts into separate piles. The song was kinda old-timey, like from the 80s or something, and sounded more like something from a Rock album than her usual tastes of Rap and R&B. She didn’t know where the song came from, it just popped into her head really, but she was feeling it.

“Dun, dun, dun” She sang out, random noises filling in for the guitar riff as she considered the pink top in her hands. It was cute, a little torn but that just made it all the more kickass, but the color was completely wrong for her. Well, it was now.

Find a new group of friends and suddenly your fashion choices change. All those school PSAs were right, go figure.

Her brother would probably pitch a fit if he knew what she was getting up to but he could kiss her ass with all that judgment. She didn’t need it and he couldn’t say a damn thing considering what he did at his ‘Totally Legitimate Job’, complete with capital letters and air quotes. Like she didn’t know what his ass was up to.

She wasn’t stupid.

She kept on humming, tossing the pink top aside to pick up a yellow crop. Keep. Plaid button down she stole from her brother’s closet, blue so it went in the trash. Cute jeans and a pair of leggings, keep. Yellow skirt, red T, checkered yellow and blue top, another pink top. Keep, toss, keep, toss.

Aisha was starting to notice a pattern there and her fingers started to trace the Coin resting in her jean’s pocket. Was this thing messing with her head? The Boss Lady and her little robot said that the Coin chose her like the thing had a mind of its own. She wasn’t going to complain about the benefits, because it was a great package offered to her, but she wouldn’t lie and say it didn’t freak her out. Even if it was just a change in favorite colors it was a little freaky.

And it would explain the new streak of yellow in her bangs.

Whatever. She’d put that out of her mind for a second, save it for when she saw the Boss Lady again, and just get back to organizing her closet. Even if it was because a little gold Coin was fucking with her head she needed to organize her closet anyway, half the crap in there was… well, crap.

Outdated crap, crap she outgrew in both style and size (mostly cause of her boobs, those were growing a bit too quick for her closet to keep up with). It needed to go, most of it at least. Some kid at a shelter could probably a hell of a lot more than she could.

Outside her bedroom door she heard a slam, her mom was home and with her new boy toy if the giggling gave her any clue. Ugh, she so didn’t want to deal with that.

“Shhh,” Her mom gasps through a laugh, the kind of laugh that came from the throat and wobbled. “My kid’s sleepin.”

“Aw, Suges, don’t worry. We ain’t gonna wake em.” He said, sounding a whole lot more put together than her mom. Probably her dealer and not a boy toy then. 

“But, ah.” Her voice got breathy again, “She’ll crash our party if we do. She can be a real pain in the ass like that.”

“She?”

Okay, time to bail. She so did not like that interest in his voice.

Aisha pushed her window open, peaking around the street to make sure no one was looking, and jumped. She fell for all of a foot before a yellow glow took hold of her, lifting her into the air and above her window. Above her building’s rooftop.

She started to loop high in the air, a light glow trailing behind her as she soared through the skies. A smile already blooming on her face as she dipped and dived through buildings and alleys.

Best. Job perk. Ever.

Sure, the Boss Lady didn’t like it when she went out like this. Something about not using powers for personal stuff, or something like that, but it was too much fun. She still did the things the other girl wanted so Aisha figured she deserved a little freedom. Besides if anyone saw her flying around they’d probably just think she was part of New Wave of something, they had a surplus on flying and glowing Barbies. 

So, she’d just be Black Barbie like what’s her face. Christine? That was the dolls name right? Not that it matters, no one cared about the Black Barbie. Not even Black people.

Figures.

She lost track of the time, floating more than flying as she took in the night sky. There were actually a few stars to look at by the docks, less light getting in the way there. She started to wonder if she should head back, risk having whoever that was still being there or heading to her dad’s place where her brother was definitely going to lecture her. Neither option seemed that fun.

Maybe she could crash at a shelter or something. Get a night away from it all. Or, maybe see if the Boss Lady had a coach open for her to sleep on for the night. She did keep going on and on about how teamwork and all that was so important, a sleepover could be called a bonding exercise right?

Plus, it was going to irk the girl like no one's business if she showed up out of the blue. It would be hilarious.

Decision made Aisha started her leisurely flight across town. She had a rough idea where she was going, the other girl’s house shouldn’t be too far away but she didn’t mind taking her time. Though she started to regret that decision when her phone started to buzz.

What did her mom get out of her high long enough to realize she wasn’t home?

Checking the caller ID she saw it was her brother, she groaned. Her mom definitely sobered up than, or at least enough to realize she was missing, and called the one person who would always drag her back. Well, she had an out for the night. She would just tell Brian that she was heading over to a friends house to spend the night and it wouldn’t even be a lie!

“Hey bro,” She greeted, as casual as possible, “No need to blow a gask-”

“We need help!” A voice yelled that was very much not her brother. Too soft and feminine for that. A girlfriend? A coworker? “Lung and the ABB are coming after us. We need you to call your friends and save us!”

“Wait, what?” She asked feeling a bit turned around, the phone call was not going anything like she expected. “Who is this?”

“You know who this is.” The caller snapped back, “I work with your brother and we're about to start running for our lives. Get your friends and save us. We’re going to be near the warehouses in the Docks, look for the giant dogs and clouds of darkness.”

Aisha briefly heard her brother in the back, asking “Lisa” what she was doing with his phone before the call quickly ended without so much as a goodbye. The phone had gone silent but her thoughts were racing.

“I know who it is?” She mumbled to herself. She probably did or had a good idea. Her brother, as much as he tried to hide it from her, was a supervillain named Grue and the leader of a little gang of Supervillains called the Undersiders. Knowing what she knew she kept a close eye on the group, memorizing the team's jobs and members And on the team there were two girls, a butch looking chick named Hellhound and a blonde in purple going by Tattletale. Aisha put her money on the second.

And they were in danger. From Lung. From the fucking dragon. And Tattletale called her because they needed help, because she somehow knew who Aisha was working with. 

The teen didn’t hesitate.

She rocketed back towards the North side of the Docks, close as she was it shouldn't take her long. Her phone started making the long drop to the ground as she flew off and brought her wrist to her face, pressing the button on her not-watch as she did. She ignored the little chime sound it made as she screamed into it, “My brother’s in trouble. The ABB are after him and his friends, please help!”

She didn’t wait for an answer, she just kept on flying as fast as her Coin would let her. Aisha scanned the Docks looking for any sign of her brother’s gang. Aisha didn’t know how long she was searching, long enough for her not-watch to chirp at her at least once but she paid it no mind because she spotted them. She didn’t find them by giant billowing clouds of darkness following them or the enormous dogs they were riding but by the literal explosions that were chasing after them.

How did they already run into trouble?

She dived down, swooping low to rooftops and getting a clear view of what was causing everything to go boom. A ninja wannabe in a creepy looking mask. Now she wasn’t the most up to date on the whole Supervillain scene but she knew enough about her hometown to recognize who that was. 

Oni Lee, a repeat suicide bomber who could leave clones behind as he teleported away. Dangerous and deadly and catching up to them quickly. 

Aisha ran a hand over her face, calling on her Coins energy to make a small mask before she dove into the fight. Aisha could say all she wanted about her boss’s first two rules but the third one to protect her identity made a whole hell of a lot of sense. She liked going home without having to worry about psychos like Oni Lee breaking in.

She barreled down, briefly passing the bone plated dogs as she did and catching the eye of the blonde smiling apologetically at her as she did, and slammed into a Lee right before he exploded. She knocked him heel over ass and off the building, letting the explosion take out whatever was below instead. A second later the demon masked creep popped into existence on the roof over, tilting his head at her as if he was wondering why the hell she was there.

Trying to kill her brother aside she was supposed to be a hero, it's what she signed up for when she accepted the coin, and it was a heroes job to stop people from trying to blow up a chunk of the city. So screw him and screw his vest full of grenades, guns, and knives. Lots of knives.

“Sup big boy.” She said, crossing her arms and glaring down at him. Knives or not, screw him. “Watcha doin round here?”

The man didn’t say anything, not even as he collapsed into a pile of ash and a sharp pain hit her side. 

She hissed in pain and looked down at the knife the failed to even piece her tank top, sparks of yellow flickering lightly under the pressure. ‘Thank you, Boss Lady and your fancy Coin.’ Aisha thought as she redoubled her glare at the masked man before punching him with more force than a thirteen-year-old girl had any right to have.

He went sailing back, with her following him to give him another few, and crashed into the rooftop as a pile of ash. She turned around right then, batting away the gun pointed at her head more out of instinct than any sort of training her brother or the Boss Lady’s robot put her through. She really didn’t want to test if she was bulletproof on top of stab proof.

“Jackass!” Aisha yelled, kicking out at him with unnatural speed. He collapsed again and again she felt a sharp pain, this time from her back. She lashed out, chasing after him and smashing through clone after clone as she did. 

She hadn’t been shot yet, staying just a step far enough ahead of him to keep herself free of potential holes. She seemed to keep on finding clones as they ran circles across the rooftop and was never able to find the real one. But that was good enough for Aisha, she was stalling the psycho and her brother was getting away which worked good enough for her. 

She grabbed the next probably clone’s wrist as he drove a knife at her and did the flip she was taught. She did it perfectly but any satisfaction she could have gotten out of that was squashed as he again burst to ash.

“Fucker!” She yelled, frustrated as slammed into the next target. Skidding him back and into the waiting maw of a monster dog. When did that get there? The robot was right, she needed to work on her observing her surroundings. 

“Holy shit.” Someone on top of the thing said as it coughed out a cloud of ash. “When did Glory Girl turn Black?” The speaker looked like Shakespeare reject with his frilly shirt (open to show a skinny pale chest) and fancy white mask framed by some gorgeous hair. 

“Regent, shut up.” A broad looking guy in a leather biker outfit said, his voice echoing strangely as black smoke leaked from his helmet but Aisha could recognize her brother’s voice. Easy enough when she already knew who he was. “He could still be around.”

“Oni Lee is a runner.” The blonde from earlier said, still up on her giant bone monster, “Always has been, always will. He’s not going to want to fight us and a flying brick friend here at the same time.” She ended that with a rather smug smile directed at Aisha.

She responded with an upturned finger. 

“Well, I guess we don’t have to worry about Lee anymore.” Her brother started staring off in the distance, probably scanning rooftops for more crazy cloning suicide bombers. “But we still got Lung in route…”

He paused for a moment, looking her over before saying, “Look, it’s about to get real dangerous around here, I’m not going to say no to help, but I would understand if you wanted to bolt. ”

Brian kept talking and she let him, a little worried he would recognize her by her voice like she did him. He was saying how they heard Lung was after them and they decided to punch first. Which probably didn’t go well if they were already running. They wanted to fight Lung when they couldn’t handle his cronies? Were they stupid?

“We are not stupid.” The blonde with a glare. “We had a plan, it just went a little sideways. So we called you.”

“Wait,” Grue said, head snapping towards who Aisha guessed was Tattletale, “You called her? Is that why you used my phone?”

“Your sister knows her.” She said, directing a knowing look at Aisha to which she responded with another middle finger. “But I was hoping she’d bring her friends…”

“They’re on their way.” She said, speaking for the first time and giving a quick glance at her brother. He didn’t seem to notice her voice, she guessed the masks and all the yellow was throwing him off. Small favors.

“Good,” Tattletale said, “I didn’t think a hero would turn us down.”

Brian got tense and the dogs started to growl at a sharp whistle from the butch looking girl on the dog next to Tattletale. “She’s a hero.”

“A hero who already knew who you were.” Tattle said with a wave as if dismissing his worries. “If she or her team wanted you in jail you’d be there already. They’re not going to lie.”

“And who is th-” He was cut off as a clap of thunder rang in their ears and a flash of blue blinded them. Everyone but Aisha flinched back, covering their ears and shutting their eyes tight before they blinked the spots in their eyes away.

With their vision clear they saw a boy with blue hair and domino masks standing before them, giving a glare at the yellow clad girl.

“I thought she fixed that thing. It’s still loud as hell.” Aisha said, sounding as casual as could be.

“She said she was fixing it.” The boy corrected, still glaring with his arms crossed, “And she’s pissed at you for jumping in without responding.”

“Well, I had to.” She snapped, taking a pointed look at the leather clad man. “I couldn’t risk it.”

The boy followed her glance, still glaring but he sighed, “Fine, but next time actually answer your communicator before flying off into trouble... We’re supposed to be a team.” 

She smiled at him, “No promises.” He sighed but gave a small smile. Teamwork was a kind of a running joke between them, that and how much she sucked at it despite trying.

“Yeah, as touching as this is, we’re in a bit of trouble,” Tattletale said interrupting them with a pointed finger, “A think that ‘Bolt out of the Blue’ got Lung’s attention.”

Following her finger, they saw a series of cars racing towards them. They were juiced up things with gaudy paint jobs and too loud engines, except for one. It was a large black SUV, sleek in design and had an ember like glow leaking from its tinted windows.

“Okay, as much as I want to say we got this…” Aisha trailed off glancing at her blue haired teammate, “Where’s the boss?”

“She heard Lung and is no rushing to finish some equipment just in case.” He said, tensing for the fight as he stood shoulder to shoulder with her. “Though she said she’d be over in a few minutes if she can’t get things running.” 

“Great.” She said, dragging out the word with just a hint of pain. It was great having Eric, Blue, there but they needed all three of them if they wanted to stand half a chance. Oni Lee and the ABB thug boys? Cake work.

Lung? She wanted a laser and giant robots before she even thought about fucking with that.

“You’re the one who didn’t want to wait.” He said, peering off the roof's edge to peek at the gather gangsters. They were all rushing out of their cars, packed like a circus van, but one caught their eye. The shirtless, dragon masked, seven foot giant stepping out of the Escalade and glaring up at them.

“Shut up.”

He hummed at her, ignoring her attitude as he considered the field, “How do you want to do this? You swoop down and drop me off, I go invisible and take out the gunman from the crowd while they distract Lung enough for the Boss to get here?”

“Screw that, there’s two of us. Let’s just go Cloth, we got enough access for at least that.”

He shook his head, “Rule 2, Don’t Escalate until they force you too.”

“That’s LUNG,” She growled, “We’re pretty much forced to do it already.”

“You won’t be able to fly.” He countered

“Yeah, but I can do like ten other things. Let’s just do this.”

“No, not until he escalates.” 

Regent leaned closer to Grue, “Are they really arguing about not escalating when there are guys with guns down there.”

“Apparently.”

“Look, ca-” She was cut off by a kick to her back, sending her spiraling off the building before catching herself a floor down but by the flash of blue she glimpsed below her she guessed she wasn’t the only unlucky one. She was too worried about him, mostly since their powers were designed to take blows like that but also because she couldn’t spot him. 

If he could go invisible then he was fine.

So, with a clear conscious, she spun around to glare at the crumbling demon masks staring back at her.

“I thought you're chicken shit ass ran away!” She yelled, angry that she let him get her. Again!

And it looked like that pattern wasn’t going to end anytime soon as he dropped down at her from above, knife swinging rapidly trying to piece through her yellow power. She cussed and cursed as she struggled with him. Eventually, with a lucky grab, she wrenched the knife from his hand.

“Ha, who gots the knife now!” She yelled, weapon firmly in hand and swinging down before she could give it a second thought. But it and her would be victim crumpled from her firm grip. “Motherfu-”

Something hit her hard in the back, sending her spinning in the air with a hiss. And then it hit her in the chest, stealing her breath and sending her on a steady spiral to the ground. She raised her arms, covering her face as she curled into a ball.

Peeking through the gaps she saw Oni Lee and Oni lee looking down at her, guns pointed downward as they rained bullets down on her. When one ran out of ammo he simply crumbled and let another Lee take over, never giving her a chance to literally breathe as he forced her to the ground. 

Aisha could feel the bruises forming, her bones shaking with each impact. She didn’t think she was bleeding which answered the bulletproof question, she guessed, but it hurt. It hurt bad. 

She didn’t so much crash land as collapsed on the street, air struggling through her nose before another bullet took it away again. She heard someone yell something - “Yellow!” - but she couldn’t see them. She tried to crawl away but she couldn’t, she just couldn’t.

She struggled to lift her head, looking down the street she saw guns littering the street far away from unconscious thugs. Some of them even seemed to be flying as the air itself seemed to strike out against them. Further down she looked where giant dogs dived into a cloud of darkness. She didn’t recognize what she was seeing until she saw streams of fire burst through the cloud again and again. Lung. The Undersider’s were fighting Lung. Her brother.

Her brother was fighting Lung. Her brother who always tried to look after her, in his overbearing way, when no one else would. Take care of her when her parents gave up. Protect her when she couldn’t, when she had no power to stop people from hurting her.

But she had power now, she could pay him back. She could keep him alive. Make sure he could keep nagging. Make sure he could still be there for her.

Fingers shook as they tried to finch purchase on the asphalt, her head bouncing off the ground from a well aimed round. She pushed on, trying to raise in the air as she moved. That’s right, she had power now, she could protect him.

She could protect him. She could save him. She could help the whole city. She could do anything.

The Power was with her.

The street clapped with thunder and a red bolt of energy seared the eyes of the unprepared. People cried out in shock, rubbing their eyes in distress but to Aisha, it had to be one of the most beautiful sights imaginable.

There, standing before everyone in a ratty red hoodie and a glare hidden behind a flimsy mask, was the Boss Lady. She stood proudly in front of Aisha, her hands on her hips and long curly hair flowing in the wind like she was on a movie set of something, 

A bullet hit her but she didn’t even stumble, a field of red energy flashed across her body like a skin tight shell. The second and third bullet did about as much, just earning a double downed glare from Aisha’s Boss. 

“You okay?” She asked, still glaring up at the roof and giving Aisha enough time to stand.

“Not really but I’m doing better now. A lot better.” She said, trying to smile but wincing as she stood up. “Can we just Armor up?”

“They shot at you.” She growled, “They escalated things, not us.”

“Soooo, that’s a yes?” Aisha asked, more hopeful than sarcastic for once.

She gave a nod, her feet spreading shoulder width apart and her own Coin flashing to her hand in a burst of Red. 

“Finally,” Aisha muttered, mimicking her leader's stance Yellow power crackling in her hand as she summoned her Coin. 

Eric shimmered into existence next to her, Blue energy radiating from his Coin as he stood behind their leader. “Sorry, should have listened to you.”

“Damn right you should have.” She mumbled but already forgiving him, he was just trying to follow the Rules and the Boss Lady showed up in time so it everything worked out in the end. She was still going to hold it over his head for a while.

She could feel the Coins thrumming with Power, the Grid opening itself wider as the three of them stood together. Energy crackling from them as gaudy grey devices formed, bulky devices that bite down on their coins like hungry monsters.

This was going to be good.

She could see some of the gangsters waking up, stirring from the pressure that was building in the street. Even the Undersiders slowed in their fight with Lung and looked towards them.

Oni Lee looking down from above, his stupid guns still in hand, tilting his head as he said one thing, “Sentai?”

“Ready?” The Boss Lady asked, glaring at the whole street as if they had personally insulted her. 

“Ready./Ready!” They answered back, Aisha swore she could hear thunder rumble above her.

“It’s Morphin time!” She yelled and the whole world seemed to fade away.

Eric slammed his Morpher forward, Blue Power shimmering in front of him and searing the air in front of him. “Blue 3, Ram!”

Aisha fell into a trance, slamming her own Morpher forward as if she were punching an invisible wall and felt just as much resistance. Yellow Power enveloped her, protecting her from the heat she knew was building. She screamed, calling for the wall to shatter and for the power to flow into her,“Yellow 2, Falcon!”

The Boss Lady finished the set, stabbing her Morpher forward and breaking through that invisible wall with a blast of Red Power, “Red 1, Beetle!”

The Power grabbed a hold of them. Digital wireframes sketching themselves over their skin before waves of color filled in the blanks and washing away Aisha’s pain. The world became tinted in Aisha’s view, displays she somehow knew had to read popped into her vision and her limbs felt like they were ready to burst as strange material clung to her skin.

Each one of them wore a near identical costume, different in only their color and helmet design. Layers of thick shiny material clung to their skin, thicker on the chest but still enough to show some curves.Wide golden rings circled around their necks, embedded in the material and annoyingly hard to see on Aisha’s costume, were modeled after Egyptian Usekh collars but Aisha just thought they looked badass. Especially with the sun like rays coming off the edges.

Their gloves, boots, and belts were black in color. Plain but what mattered. Because there, like a fancy belt buckle, were their morphers with their golden Coins proudly on display. Nestled right between a laser gun holstered on one hip and a dagger on the other.

She could hear an explosion erupt behind her, the exhaust from their transformation like a badass version of a car backfiring. And she’s not going to lie, she posed. She had too much energy just to stand still, she had to do something.

The others seemed like the were in the same boat, Blue was flexing like he had something and the Boss Lady was in some pretty badass fighting stance. 

And everyone on the street was staring at them, stunned by their awesomeness. Even Lung was slack jawed, kinda. He had a bit of a Predator face going on.

“Sentai.” He lisped, mirroring Lee as he stared at them. A bit stunned but not frozen, stupefied might have been closer Aisha guessed. 

“No.” The Boss Lady, Taylor, Red 1, said. Stepping forwards and swiping her arm to the side for her weird scythe-sword to flash into a red themed existence. “Rangers. Power Rangers. And you have caused enough damage to this city.”

“You have hurt countless innocent and that ends here,” Eric said, falling into eerie synch with the Boss as he summoned his giant horned hammer.

“We will protect them, we will protect all of them, from you and dirtbags like you.” She said, words falling from her mouth as she called out for her bow.

“Sentai.” Lung said again, this time in a disgusted sigh. Swatting at one of the monster dogs as he stepped forward, “Annoyances then, annoyances now.” He growled , starting to pick up speed as he started to rush forward.

Eric beat him to it, his speed frightening as sprinted forward. Lung went skidding back, slamming into a car, disoriented and never noticing Taylor snap into place behind him. Teleportation was easier when they were Morphed, the Power helping the process smooth out and be used for more things than just going across town.

Lung screamed as a sword bit into his back, red energy flashing ironically as the would cauterize from the power of the blade. It’s weird design obviously not dulling the blade at all. 

Aisha didn’t bother herself with the dragon man, instead, she pulled her bowstring back and aimed at the roof. Yellow energy condensed into a shaft of light, racing across the street and taking a surprised Lee square in the chest.

It hit him, she could tell by how his next clone held his smoking chest. And the one after that, and the one after that, each one getting further and further down the street. Yeah, she wasn’t going to let that happen.

She pulled back and fired again. Her fancy knew suit let her pick up his startled scream as the bolt of Yellow Power hit him in the back. 

“That’s what you get for shooting me you jackass.” She muttered before switching targets.

Lung was… being Lung. Eric was hitting him hard, keeping him off balance, but each hit seemed to do less and less. The Boss wasn’t doing much better. She slashed and cut, taking out what Aisha guessed were needed muscles, but he kept getting up and up again when the Boss slashed out his ankles.

Aisha helped where she could, aiming for the eyes with her suit helping to make sure she hit the target, but they all seemed like momentary distractions. In all fairness, his fire wasn’t doing much damage to them either. Their suits were could take it, mostly. There was a limit but they hadn’t reached it yet.

Eric took advantage of that, slamming his hammer into Lung’s chin and then taking another swing with the backswing. The ram horns of the hammer working just as well as the hammers flat end, better maybe as they slammed the crook into the asphalt. 

The Boss Lady was apparently playing defensive, cutting into the giant scaled hand that reached out to crush Eric. She grunted, kicking the wrist away to dislodge her sword and spun in for another series of cuts that seemed to be healing quicker and quicker. 

“You!” The Boss yelled at the Undersiders, who were standing around like wallflowers at a school dance. “Distract him!” 

“Oool uu!” Lung Yelled in response, but the Boss’s yell snapped the Undersiders into action and giant mutant dogs snapped their jaws into Lung. He roared in pain and rage, fire rolling off him as he lashed back. He wasn’t even half the size of the beasts but each blow from him sent them reeling onto their hind legs.

If there weren’t three of them than the dogs would have been dead already. Crushed underneath Lungs angry fiery fist but they covered for each other. Attacking and defending just enough to keep Lung off balance. It wasn’t going to be enough to keep the man down, there just wasn’t enough damage being done.

But it gave them enough time.

“Rangers put your weapons together.” The Boss ordered, standing over Eric’s shoulder as he knelt down. He folded the shaft of his hammer back, revealing a cannon's mouth framed by two inwardly curving horns. The horns turned and made room for Aisha’s bow as she slid it into place, followed by Taylor slamming her sword at the top.

The cannon looked like a five pointed star or a robotic claw now, which made sense to Aisha as she and Taylor each grabbed one of Eric’s shoulders. Yellow and Red Power flowed from them and into him before making their final stop in the cannon, where a tri-colored ball of power started to form and grow. It’s bright light swirled in the claws grip and strained for release.

“Move!” The Boss yelled, giving the dogs barely enough time to clear it as they released the ball of power.

“Ra Sunflare Cannon!” Again, the words were automatic. She’d talk to the Boss about it later but right now she was enjoying the sight of the cannonball of pure Power slam Lung in the chest. The beast roared and tried to push the orb away but he couldn’t, he wasn’t strong enough.

It pulped his hands and burrowed into his chest with explosive results. Red, Yellow, and Blue smoke clouds poured from Lungs chest as he laid back groaning.

“Yes!” She cheered, shaking the boss in her excitement. She seemed to take it in good cheer. Eric clapped both of them on the back and then decided to say ‘Screw it’ and wrap them both in a bear hug.

“My cousin is going to be so jealous!”

Off to the side, Aisha’s suit let her pick up a muttered comment from her Brother’s pretty boy teammate, “Okay, let’s not pick a fight with them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An:  
> And done. Honestly, this snip should have ended twice. First with the morph and second with Taylor’s Ranger comment but I wanted to see how far I could push myself in a day. Which apparently is pretty far. One shot go!
> 
> Anyway,a Worm/Power Rangers crossover that probably is never going to happen. I was mostly inspired by Boom, Lionsgate, and Dinotunder for this but I don’t know or think I’m continuing this.
> 
> So, some bullet points on my random thoughts for the story:  
> \- These Rangers are based on Ra and his various forms. Dawn = Khepri/Beetle = Red, Noon = Ra/Falcon = Yellow, Dusk = Khnum/Ram = Blue (well purplish blue). Can you guess why I chose this theme?
> 
> -Taylor is the Red Ranger because Taylor. The Coins are an offshoot of her corrupted power
> 
> -Aisha was chosen because A) she’s fun and B) there has been a Yellow Ranger named Aisha before so I thought I’d play with that.
> 
> \- Originally Theo was going to be the Blue Ranger but I thought why not Eric Phelham? He would be an interesting character to play with in this. He would be unpowered at story start feeling alienated from his family who he admired. He wants to be a hero. It puts him at odds a bit with Aisha who is doing it for giggles for the most part and is related to a villain. I also picked him because he came color coded.
> 
> \- Taylor’s power was corrupted by a combination of the Shattered Grid and the Zordon Wave, the Shattered Grid giving the Wave access to the QA’s world as it was washed by. Taylor’s Shard wasn’t the only one corrupted.
> 
> \- The other corrupted Shards were in Japan, not quite touching the Morphing Grid aka the source of Ranger Powers but bringing it close enough for Taylor to access. This is why Levithan attacked Japan and would be the reason why Brockton is attacked. References to the Sentai will be made.
> 
> -Taylor is building most of the Ranger stuff as time goes on. First the coins that gives enhanced condition (see movies but would be less in this), a personal power (Flight, Invisibility *Eric needs a different power*, Exoskeleton), and a minor shield on kevlar level. Next is the Cloth, see Ninjas from original MMPR, that give various powers at sacrifice of personal powers. And then the Armor aka traditional Ranger Morph. Likely a group powerup/battlizer like SPD followed by a Red one.
> 
> -Again, Taylor making things as she goes along with what she can get her hands on. The first Zords are modified cars. A VW Beetle, a Ford Falcon, and a Dodge Ram… Get it?
> 
> -Taylor built an Alpha
> 
> -Might have Blasto move to Brockton Bay for some Monster of the Week elements
> 
> -There would be at least one scene where Aisha and Eric try to convince Taylor to dye her hair like them. There might be multiple attempts.
> 
>  
> 
> Hope you enjoyed, please tell me what you thought of it!


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